The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 1919. WATER AND HOUSING.

Taihape Daily Times, 29 April 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 1919. WATER AND HOUSING.

(With wHieh 16 incorporated Tlje /*•!• nape Poot tad WalEMUfl'3'* News).

The advantages arising from competition for positions on local governing bodies have been obviously exemplified in the present Borough election campaign. On this occasion burgesses of the town have had the unusual experience of being invited to hear old councillors and new aspirants for public confidence give their views on present and future government. The past has also been referred to but only in what is usually termed "a Town Clerk's speech," that is, a relation of events, as recorded in the chronicles of the Council's doings. But the experience gained at the meetings called by the two candidates for the Mayoralty will undoubtedly prove of considerable advantage to the whole Borough; if it were otherwise gatherings of such a character would only bs waste of time. Without discussing men, it may be helpful to briefly consider the two questions that are shown to be exercising the minds of the electors most. There is no denying the fact that the Borough has a standing menace in its inadequate- and most unsatisfactory water supply, coupled with this are the electric lighting and sewer age services. The public is too often inclined to attribute the advocacy of the modern essential public services to the advocate's desire to expend public money for his own convenience first and to do something for the community secondly; and one too often hears, "he wants this, or he wants that." However selfish men may act. it is apparent, that this town is threatened with a water famine, which moans that the whole sewerage system of the Borough may instantly be thrown out of action, rendered useless for such time as the water failure continues. Have any of us given any serious thought about the conditions that would be inevitable if the least misfortune were to over- , take cur already hcavj-ly 'burdened provision for water? The cry for water

and drainage is not for convenience that follows their installation, it is the I'car of danger to life, and, let it b e understood, of the constant distressing appxekensiv'eness that children bnay be struck down with those frightful epidemics that find their origin in filthy conditions. No sane person can avoid deeply sympathising with, our townspeople who live on the western side the railway; we have thought out schemes and proposals for abatement and cure of this sore on the municipality, but we have been met with the general Government's determination to curb and discountenance the prosecution of public works during the war. Every elector, whether he be ratepayer or'not, must realise that the Borough Council has a pressing duty to perform which it is criminal to neglect, one moment longer than it can be helped. Western residents should, however, not fail to do something towards helping themselves; Itliey are likely to be the first sufferers from an "epidemic of typhoid, therefore tbey should be foremost with workable proposals that are reasonably just and arguable. If some such, proposal were agreed upon they might petition the Council for the mode of its material-V.-tion. The water service is the mostvital public question JTaiiape <is

concerned with, and the Council has now that war is over, commenced upon selecting a scheme that it is of opinion will be ample for all parts of the Borough for very many years to come. Councillors (have, under consideration two alternative sources of supply, one is by the old tried gravitation method, the other is from a virtually untried subterranean source, and if Councillors deliberate exhaustively upon every phase of each proposal there is no reason why the menace of epidemic ,from the want of water to wash filth away should be endured only for a limited period into the 'future. !A'b*.ve Oil, this* town needs a Council of action, not stagnation, for it lias everything at stake. It is supreme folly to urge that, anything necessary to human health and life is too costly; what man outside a lunatic asylum will save his money and sacrifice his own. his wife's, or his children's health and life, to say nothing of the life and health of the community? A roof and spout supply is pttissabjly endurable "n localities where houses are a mile or more apart, but in a congested area such as Taihape is, the old spout supply is filthy and dangerous in the extreme, and no time should bo wasted in replacing it from a clean, adequate source. The question second in importance to water, sewage and light is the housing •)£ t%o peop'Je. Tn connection with this subject there has been a regrettable display' of evidence that aspirants for municipal honours can only think; in. money; life, healths humanity generally, all are right out of the running with money. Workingmen must not have houses because they canrijot afford to pay interest, and sinking fund on the money The houses would cost; their arguments for the money aspect leave the men and their families under the canopy of heaven for protection from the elements, presumably to sleep upon clothes lines, to bear and rear their children under the shelter of wire fences. They have an idea that working people should, have houses, and they are willing -that houses should be built when building material is what they consider cheap enough, and from general experience

this is when "pigs begin to fly." Tt j is a study to note their lugubrations as the money rises up and opposes itself in their minds to the houseless, women and children, and it is at this poinjfc tfneir are 'truncated; their reasoning has been along a blind ally; they cannot, get past the : money. They cannot sacrifice the money for the man. If it costs too. j much, in their little way of think- j tag, to house men, women and children who haven't- the means to get j houses of their own, well, those un- j fortunate human beings must go without houses. They are not their "brother's keeper." and all (he horri-fv-inc disclosures in England and in this Dominion of the inhuman housing of the people which, in England at least, has sapped the very health and stamina of the nation, has no effect upon them as evidence why men. women and children should have houses whatever the cost. Men who cannot look beyond the money element in the j housing problem often have noticeably J limited vision. In present eonsidora- j tion they do not seem to realise that there are thousands' of soldiers yet to return; that thousands are still awaiting change to civil life; that Government, is contemplating some scheme of immigration, loucl thai thousands of British soldiers have determined to j seek a home in New Zealand. The I men who cannot get beyond the money j clement have not applied the most ele- j mentary thought and calculation to tire hugeness, of the housing problem, nor to the disastrous consequences of the policy of drift they advocate respecting it. Our sons and daughters are marrying and soldiers are presenting to this country thousands of brides they have brought from Europe. There | is no law yet to prevent increase of I population, but it seems; that the inI crease will have. f.o go houseless until j laws are enacted to compel people to realise that money was made for man and not man for money. It is difficult to conceive a more inhuman argument than that urging that people must remain without houses because of the money it costs to buildi them. We have refrained from discussing the business side of the housing problem, because it is nothing less than trafficking in human flesh and blood; putting the lives of men and women and children on one side and money on the other. Tire town and district that proI vides the houses will have the populaI lion. What will Taihape do?