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Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 85, 27 August 1912, Page 4

DUKE OF NORFOLK'S SLUMS. The London Daily News and Leader recently published an interesting article by Mr. fi. L. Outhwaite 'dealing with the toll exacted by the Duke of Norfolk from the city of Sheffield. Attercfiffe, the most populated part of-Sheffield's factory area; says Mr. Outhwaite, was Attercliffe Common a century ago,"but the inquitous Enclosure award of 1820 gavo sixty acres of it to "the.most noble Charles, Duke of Norfolk, Lprd of the Manor of Sheffield." ( In the last thirty years the population of the'area has grown from GOOOjto 60,000. The Duke also own# a large) area of land in the Brightside division' formerly as Salmon Pastured, and part of the ancient demesne of the Dukes of Norfolk. In this district! there is some low-lying land unfit for building purposes. On thjs land the Dukje allows manufacturers to shoot their rubbish on payment of sixpence per 'load, and the rubbish is gradually bringing tlie land up to the right level for building.- When the Sheffield Education'. Committee recently sought to purchase an acre of this land, which was c'onsjdered so worthless that it paid nd rate|, it was compelled to give £2300 for it. Enclosure award's have greatly benefited the Dukes of Norfolk. In 1(91, an award gave them 1393 acres of common land which now forms part of the 'suburban quarter of Sheffield, and another award gave them 7000 acres of land which formerly belonged to the people. On this land''the Duke of Norfolk's slums are built—streets of "back-to-bpek" houses, small, dirty, vile-smell-ing and productive! of a death-rate of 40 per 'IOOO. These, slum arena go within a stone's throw of. Sheffield's magnificent Town Hall. To widen one of the dirty narrow lanes whi«h disfigure the city the corporation had recently to pay his Grace the'sum of .'£fi3j)2fi, while to improve the-thoroughfare £145,987 had to be paid. The Duke has sole right to maintain a market in Sheffield, and the corporation : had to purchase a site and buy out his rights at a cost of over half a million. Mr. Outhwaite makes theso facts the text of a plea for taxation on land*' values, which Mr. Lloyd Georgo in now 1 fighting for. '•