Unidentified house interior. Webb, Steffano, 1880-1967: Collection of negatives. Ref:1/1-009227-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22835160

The British Medical Association is not a political body, but must look to politicians for public health legislation. The conditions affecting the health of the community in this country in urban areas are very far from what they should be. A political election is pending, and so nothing of a practical kind can be done for some considerable time. We have had quite enough of talk about the good of the people as a whole; as Bacon pointed out long ago, the great thing is not what can be said so much as what can be done, and we are still waiting for all the reforms that are supposed to follow on the war. It would be reasonable to wait a little longer with patience. Slums cannot be abolished until a large number of good houses are built. Housing also waits to some extent upon improved and cheapened means of transport, and this depends in turn to a large extent on hydro-electric power. 0n the assumption that the healthy limit is reached when 1½ persons occupy each room, for example six people in a four-roomed dwelling, it would appear from statistics that 13½ per cent of people in New Zealand are living in crowded conditions. For the year 1916; the last for which returns are available, the total inhabited private dwellings and tenements in the Dominion were 238,066, occupied by 1,012,694 persons, and 32,000 dwellings were overcrowded, and over 136,000 of the inhabitants were living under conditions of overcrowding. To limit the density to 1½ persons for each and every room of a dwelling would require 31,393 additional rooms, or the equivalent of 6,300 five-roomed houses.

Three years have now elapsed, the troops have returned, the civilian population has increased, and the ratio of new houses built to the total number of the population has steadily declined. For the seven years prior to the war the marriage rate averaged 8½ per thousand of the population, and as each marriage ought to mean a separate dwelling, the provision from this aspect alone demands over 9,500 houses annually. In the light of these figures, and from other considerations, it is estimated by competent investigators that provision should be gradually made for an addition of 25,000 houses to the present housing accommodation of this country. The State Advances Act and the Workers’ Dwelling Act have merely touched the fringe of the difficulty. Private enterprise cannot settle the housing question, for building houses for letting purposes is no longer a profitable investment. The State must adopt a more active and efficient scheme, and will require to borrow a very large sum of money for the purpose. The cost can be reduced by buying large blocks of suburban land, and by standardisation in a modified form. We dislike the State undertaking work which can be done equally well by private enterprise, but when private enterprise fails what can be done but to invoke the aid of the Government? The housing question, as regards the health and comfort of the people, is urgent and pressing, and no statesmen are worthy of the name who can longer neglect it. It is of course true that the material comfort of the people is not everything. It is little without education, and almost nothing without character. The almost prohibitive cost of housing at present is due, no doubt, largely to conditions which are inevitable, but at the same time there is, on the one hand, profiteering, and on the other, anything but a fair day’s work for a fair day’s wage. Housing and the abolition of slums and the provision of parks and recreation grounds are all a part of preventive medicine, and no apology is necessary for alluding to them in the pages of a medical journal. The guidance and the force of the medical profession should be behind all these reforms.

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Unidentified house interior. Webb, Steffano, 1880-1967: Collection of negatives. Ref:1/1-009227-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22835160

The British Medical Association is not a political body, but must look to politicians for public health legislation. The conditions affecting the health of the community in this country in urban areas are very far from what they should be. A political election is pending, and so nothing of a practical kind can be done for some considerable time. We have had quite enough of talk about the good of the people as a whole; as Bacon pointed out long ago, the great thing is not what can be said so much as what can be done, and we are still waiting for all the reforms that are supposed to follow on the war. It would be reasonable to wait a little longer with patience. Slums cannot be abolished until a large number of good houses are built. Housing also waits to some extent upon improved and cheapened means of transport, and this depends in turn to a large extent on hydro-electric power. 0n the assumption that the healthy limit is reached when 1½ persons occupy each room, for example six people in a four-roomed dwelling, it would appear from statistics that 13½ per cent of people in New Zealand are living in crowded conditions. For the year 1916; the last for which returns are available, the total inhabited private dwellings and tenements in the Dominion were 238,066, occupied by 1,012,694 persons, and 32,000 dwellings were overcrowded, and over 136,000 of the inhabitants were living under conditions of overcrowding. To limit the density to 1½ persons for each and every room of a dwelling would require 31,393 additional rooms, or the equivalent of 6,300 five-roomed houses.

Three years have now elapsed, the troops have returned, the civilian population has increased, and the ratio of new houses built to the total number of the population has steadily declined. For the seven years prior to the war the marriage rate averaged 8½ per thousand of the population, and as each marriage ought to mean a separate dwelling, the provision from this aspect alone demands over 9,500 houses annually. In the light of these figures, and from other considerations, it is estimated by competent investigators that provision should be gradually made for an addition of 25,000 houses to the present housing accommodation of this country. The State Advances Act and the Workers’ Dwelling Act have merely touched the fringe of the difficulty. Private enterprise cannot settle the housing question, for building houses for letting purposes is no longer a profitable investment. The State must adopt a more active and efficient scheme, and will require to borrow a very large sum of money for the purpose. The cost can be reduced by buying large blocks of suburban land, and by standardisation in a modified form. We dislike the State undertaking work which can be done equally well by private enterprise, but when private enterprise fails what can be done but to invoke the aid of the Government? The housing question, as regards the health and comfort of the people, is urgent and pressing, and no statesmen are worthy of the name who can longer neglect it. It is of course true that the material comfort of the people is not everything. It is little without education, and almost nothing without character. The almost prohibitive cost of housing at present is due, no doubt, largely to conditions which are inevitable, but at the same time there is, on the one hand, profiteering, and on the other, anything but a fair day’s work for a fair day’s wage. Housing and the abolition of slums and the provision of parks and recreation grounds are all a part of preventive medicine, and no apology is necessary for alluding to them in the pages of a medical journal. The guidance and the force of the medical profession should be behind all these reforms.

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