The Daily News. FRIDAY, JUNE 16, 1911. A COMMON CRIME.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 329, 16 June 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, JUNE 16, 1911. A COMMON CRIME.

''The applicant (a consumptive), his wife and three children lived in a shed that had formerly been used as a stable. There were no windows, and the only air cntranae was the door. The door opened on a yard. The applicant paid 10s a week for rent." This is an extract from the report of >the visitor for a New Zealand benevolent institution. Jt may be further explained that the shed was owned by a. person of marked benevolent tendencies and of exemplary character. Mr. Lloyd-George, in one of his vivid speeches, lately said that he would make it a crime equal to receiving stolen property for a landlord to receive rent for insanitary dwellings. He. has already done much in England to kill the slums. Great corporations, largely through his influence, are tearing down huge areas of filthy tenements, and incidentally ridding the areas of a pestilence. But we accuse Britain of "slowness." New Zealand has shuns as unhealthy as the worst in the East End of London, the only difference being that the rents for the New Zealand disease hot-beds are 50 per cent, higher than those aslceu for British slums.' The good old British law that the first charge on a debtor should be his rent flourishes strongly in New Zealand, and a big proportion of the cases coming before the charitable aid boards in New Zealand cities come because of excessive rents. Verv few people apply to charitable aid "boards if they are in good health. The insanitary dwelling is the greatest Jactor in germinating disease. It is, therefore, the chief contributing cause to unemployment, destitution and the necessity for poor relief. No one who has not'first-hand knowledge of the New Zealand slum and the price paid for the luxury of inhabiting it would believe that what Mr. Lloyd-George wants for England is just as badly wanted in New Zealand. The spasmodic activity of municipalities, health officers and others frequently disclose cases that shock the public, but they are spasmodic. There is no law in this country to compel a landlord to keep a dwelling healthily habitable, and in many cases he does not try. - They manage these things differently in Germany. The German tenant is permitted by law to have necessary repairs and hygienic arrangements effected, provided he is not responsible for the defects himself. He is allowed to charge the work to his landlord. If the charges are just the landlord must pay then". If he does not pay them, the municipality distrains on his goods. An insanitary dwelling is very rare in Germany. It is very common in New Zealand'. What politician ever thought of referring to such a trifling matter as an insanitary dwelling which breeds pestilence anu'kills the voters?