The Daily News. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22. HOUSING THE WORKER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 81849, 22 September 1906, Page 2

The Daily News. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22. HOUSING THE WORKER.

The worker anil the land arc ail in ad to New Zealand. One is not much good without tilt' ether. It is sail pre, blematical whether the worker is a better man for being spoon fed 01 whether lie respond-, sympathetically to the gifts politicians thrust 011 him either to his own advantage or the benefit of the politician. It is the town worker for whom the Government have .ately instituted workmen's homes. Population concentrates ; n the larger centies, not always because there is enough and to spare of work and food and comfort to go round, but because man for the most part is a gregarious animal, who in many cases refuses to leave his kind, a : though. by so doing, he may bene fit himself. The population of New Zealand is very small. It is better divided and distributed than the population of, say, Australia, not because the latter country is behind New Zealand, in the understanding of social problems, but because of the advantages of soil, climate and conditions obtaining in this country. But diffused as are the people, they are still too concentrated.

When the pressure becomes too great slums are cieated, poverty exists and the crowing becomes a menace to Inc pcup.e at large. When such a condition arrives the civic authorities are faced with the problem of bettering the housing accomodation of the poor, or those people who take tiie place cl the poor in this country. The municipal authorities in New Zealand arc as a general thing much behind the times. They prubab'y recognise thai as the Government has in the past tiied to face tiie problems that the municipalities, should have tackle'', the Government and not the municipalities may face them in the futute. Hence woikmen's homes. Awhile ago there went a journalistic wa.l through the country that tiie worker had a bad time with his land iorthat he paid too much rent, that lie was just as far advanced on December 31st of the year as he was at the same peritd in the year preceding. The municipalities did nut care. At least if they did care they made no sign and buhl no houses. If lilt- Government liar' started as a coal ni'Tchani, insurance agent, money-lender and what not why no. a= a town landlord? Workmen's homes were the result. Twenty five cottages alleged to be up to date were elected in Petone, a manufacturing town quite close to Wellington. Three applicants turned up tu ask for the houses! Which seems to show that either the worker is begin-

ning to be rea ly independent or that the Government have made a mistake in pursuing the spoon-feeding move ment, that has been a feature of the administration of public affairs, as far as the town worker only is concerned. [or many years past. * * * *

WE have no hesitation whatever in saying that (iie workmen's heme scheme lias fioin its inception been a ha.re binined scheme. The huge rents charged by greedy landlords 11 lhe towns at the pnscnt moment are not going to last. In a few years time a holder of one of those workers' homes will find that va.ues having fallen to a normal tone, he is payinu too much for his home. Perhaps the woiker sees this. IVrhaps not. Perhaps lie doesn't think much at all. lie is a wanderer in the colony and it is safe to say that not fifty per cent or the population and its offspring now in Wellington will comprise tinpopulation in another twenty yeartime. The colonial up to now has proved that he "follows the rush'' just as he did in the old gold-digging days, lie is where there is work to i>e had. Ho does not settle down, lb d es not want a peimanent home, lie is, especially in tlio cities, c',litem to hive two or thiee families in a house. * * * *

Vol" can't prevent twenty thousand people living in heaps by building twenty live cottages that are cheap as property now goes. As for per mitting people who are better ■fi than the "hoiny-handed" to occupy Stat"- houses, well, they won't, 'l'.v man who does not take his ccat ofi lo work, is unfortunately not at all bkely to jump al the chance of living in a house/vhich everybody will look on as a charitable institution, erected as an experiment that failed by a Government which endeavoured to set an alleged wrong righl without success. INew Zea and, small as the population 'S. has c louded towns, and a sparsely settled couniiy. It would pay the Government bcucr in the long run 10 make every ejloil, even at a present loss, not to build houses to induce pe> pie to stay in towns, bui to grant lands in the wide back country so that the towns might be collie less crowded.

Till-: prosperity of a country is not to h< gauged by the hugeness and fewness of its Cities, but by the c : ose settling nl of ii* country, the number of its small townships and tlie wealth of, not the minority, but the majority. A SiMtii-nvnt of the land question is also the srulement of the rent ques ti'.i| in towns. Apolicy which is generous enough to make it possible for the crowded townspeople to become country settlers, is the policy that is going to knock the slums of the city out and herald the prosperity of the country. The worker or a few of them at Wellington have shown that they don't want cheap Government dwellings. Try the worker with cheap Government land. While the land in this Of any other province is being sold at froju thirty to forty pounds an, acre there will foe alums in the cities. : Thk citi< s grow, and thf city papeis brag about it and say the town grows "more like London every day." God forbid that there should ever bo a second London in New Zealand. A city 1 j 1<• ■ London is built on the pov erty of the peop e an.l t'le riches of the pemin*. li i s the boa»i pf the v.urld, but it should be the shame of, tlie tinr!:!, Its crowded mil'ioas are huddled togothe;, while the, persons own the land, the gift of the Creator to all Men there arc who have tried to so've the probl' ill of workers' home in the gnat heart of the world, and have solved it in a small way. Here ill this free young country poverty should n' vi r set foot, and tlvre never have h'-.n any tor the solution of the problem of sujip'jiiu;- woikeiV homes.

If the (itiV! nin;"!!' can Mippv a man with a t"i' in a w r <'k t»»*• landlord has been swindling 4he peop'f-. What i< tin' obvious coinse to tak' I 'l'«> he'p lh«- \V'"ikt'r by spoon f kl'iik h'ni, cr m make it impossible f<n (h<' landlord to become an ex ti-itioii''!? Th«* pe"pV i am bled morly ihiouLjii lh<* la;id aivl tieI <,,n nLi'y b" emancipated the 'and. Vou can no indp 1 s*nle the question »t town r'-nts by building workmen's homo than you can bail the Pacific Ocean with a iicvc.