RACK RENTING AT THE CAMPS

Taranaki Daily News, 26 May 1917, Page 5

RACK RENTING AT THE CAMPS

PLIGHT OP MARRIED SOLDIERS. (From Our !Ovm Correspondent.) Wellington, May 24. The question of house accommodation for' soldiers' wives and relatives in the vicinity of the military camps, now engaging the attention of the military authorities, looms very large indeed in the minds of many of the soldiers. The' situation is simply scandalous, and hundreds of officers and men have oeen fretting under a sense of injustice! Both the military camps are set in the midst /of sparsely populated districts, and the number of houses available for the, occommodation of wives and families wifjhin a radius of, say, two iniles is very small. If the available houses were multiplied fivefold at once there would still be a shortage. These conditions have forced hundreds of soldiers to rent rooms for their womenfolk, and the trouble has started there. The landlords have seen the chance to make money out of the needs of the men, and their exactions have been beyond all reason and all decency. A few illustrations may bo quoted. The occupants of a, small five-roomed house have let four rooms, a stable, and a lean-to that apparently was intended originally for a' fowl-house. They have got tho wives of five soldiers in the place, with half-a-dozen children, and they are drawing in rents something between £6 and £7 a week. Tho conveniences are few, and the overcrowding is only tolerable because tho tenants know that if they leave they, may foe unable to find a roof.near thecamp at all. A'three-roomed cottage with a little furniture is let for ,£8 10s a week, V) The officer mho is paying this extortionate rent can ill afford the money,, hilt'he must pay if ho is to have his wife.and children near him. The wife, of a private is paying 17s 6da week for. a room. She lias,no cooking facilities, jp (lie house and has to carry water from a creek some distance away, ~,•:; ' It is not clear that the Govcrftinenl can bring the rents down to a fair level, Tho available houses have a present monopoly value, and if the owners choose to exploit the soldiers there is no law to stop them. But the Government may at least take steps by regulation to ensure that the tenants who arecoiqpolled to pay these oppressively high rents shall be protected adequately in the matter of sanitation, and: that the rooms let to them shall be in a reasonable state of repair and suitable for occupation by women and children. Some of the hovels that are ,lct. to soldiers' .wives at the present time Would be pulled down Bummarily if they were discovered to bo in uso in a decently conducted town.