DUKE OF NORFOLK'S SLUMS

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10707, 30 August 1912, Page 6

DUKE OF NORFOLK'S SLUMS

The London, Daily News and Leader J recently published an interesting ar- \ tide by Mr R.L. Outhwaito dealing j with the toll exacted by the Duke of 1 Norfolk from the city of Sheffield. Attercliffe, the most populated part cf Sheffield's factory area, says Mr Outhwaito, was Attercliffe Common a century ago, but th? inquitous Enclosure award of 1820 gave sixty a era? of it to "the most ir<l!e Charles, Duke of Norfolk. Loud of the Manor of Sheffield." In the last thirty years the ] population of the area has grown from 6000 to 60,000. Tho Duke also owns a large area of land in tho Brightsido division, formerly known as Salmon Pastures, and part of the ancient demesne of the Dukes of Norfolk. Tjv this district there is some low-lying land unfit for building purposes. On this land the Duke allows manufacturers to shoot rubbish o?i payment of sixpence per load, and the rubbish is gradually bringing tho bind up to the right level .for building. When the Sheffield Education Committee recently sought to purchase an aero of this land, which was considered so worthless that it paid no rates, it was compelled to give £2300 for it. Enclosure award? have greatly benefited the Dukes of Norfolk. Tn 1791 an award gave them 1393 acres of common land which now form* 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-back" Tic-uses, small, 1 dirty, r.'.ul productive of a death-rate of -10 per 1000. These slum areas go within a stonc's-throw of Sheffield's magnificent Town Hall. To widen one cf thr» dirty narrow lanes, which disfigure the-city, the eorpention had recently to pay his Grace the rum cf £63,950, while to improve the thoroushfare £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 •it a cost of over half a million. Mr Outhwaito makes thc.-so facts the text of a plea for taxation en land values, which Mr 'Lloyd George is now fighting for.