IMPROVED DWELLINGS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES.

Waikato Times, Volume VIII, Issue 449, 3 April 1875, Page 2

IMPROVED DWELLINGS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES.

The « Dailjr Hefcgiaph," thinks that if «br4 Home Secretary's, bill dots not fulfil the expectaU, turns of philanthropists, neither will it excite the fears of political ecqnomUts. The Home Secretary has done quite right to make it. distinctively a sani* tary measure, for,, as he sh»U it is not. tl^dnty of the State to provide any class with the n< cessitiea of existence. Any attempt to do ao vould be ipischievous in tho lon^f »w>j>and the " Telegraph " trusts that the Home Secretary will not. flinoh f™™

an enlirrily different thing to insist that rookeries of typhus shall be swept away and replaced by decent dwellings. It is desirable to clean foyer dens out of the way, whatever may be the cost. Here the guiding considerations should be, not those of mere profit and loss, but those of (he people's health. It mny be well, ther. fore, to provide a somewhat stringent means of compelling the public bodies to do the duties Bpecitud in the bill. The " Daily News " remarks that Mr Cross's measure makes na pretence at great philanthrophic _• enterprise or magnanimity. Mr Cross founds 1. is 1 bill simply on sanitary considerations. Its contf nection with the welfare and the improvement of the working classes may also be described as accidental. The '• News" does not say that this is necessarily any objection to the scheme, which it is far more inclined to consider in its probable effects than on its nominal principles. To a large pioportion ot the public the scheme will be all the more welcome, because it founds itself on considerations of public health exclusively ; but the fact is, at any rate, one to be noted as the central attribute of the bill. The " Standard," while it admits that the results to be expected from Mr Cross's bill must be slow and gradual, wishes it were as clear that this measure will not be the thin edge of the wedge ; will not introduce into the legislation of this country that principle of eleemosynary assistance to the poor in providing for themselves the necessaries of life which Mr Cross so emphatically repudiated. With this reserve the " Standard " heartily wishes the bill and its author God speed. It was high time that something were done ; and in the main this measure goes along with the desire and the advice of the most judicious and prudent of those who have been laboring for years in the work. The " Post " holds that whatever improvements may be introduced into Mr Cross's bill when it goes into committee, its general plan holds out a hopeful prospect that the beginning of the end of a great social evil has been made. No more truly heroic measure has ever been laid before Parliament. It is not to be expected that ■it will immediately, or even speedily, put an end to the dire evils which afflict the poorer classes, and which entail so much coat and peril on the community at large. But it opens the way to a gradual mitigation of those evils, and possibly to their ultimate removal.