the duty of the Government to undertake the responsibility. Municipalities in New Zealand are not in a position to do what is desired. Large sums have to be expended in purchasing land and erecting the houses, and the municipalities have other ways of spending their money. The fact remained, however, that the Legislature intended that suitable houses, which could be obtained at a reasonable rental, should be erected for the workers, and the law had been allowed to remain a dead letter.
On making systematic inquiries into the conditions of the workers in recent years, Mr. Seddon found that although wages had risen, and the conditions under which the people lived were much better than formerly, the workers’ position on the whole had not improved as much as he expected it would and as much as he thought it ought to. His inquiries led him to conclude that in some parts of the colony the cost of living had increased as much as 33 per cent., and he met with many cases in which quite one-third of the workers’ earnings was paid for rent. He could never be led to see how the colony would recede from the progress it had made, and he said that with the increase of population, which, he argued, meant increase in land values and increase in rents, it was necessary to check the tendency to make living for the worker harder as the colony went into more prosperous times.
State-owned workmen’s dwellings have now been erected near some of the principal centres. It remains to be seen what effect the scheme will have on rents generally. Mr. Seddon had great faith that it would stop the upward movement of rents in cities, and he confidently asserted that those who occupied the dwellings would sometimes save as much as 7s., 8s., or 10s. a week. When it was stated that he was doing too much for the working classes, he replied that with the rise in rents there would be a demand for a rise in wages, and if he was able to bring down rents he would be helping the employer and the capitalist as well as the worker. It was consideration for the worker’s health, however, that had most weight with him. “The more ventilation there is in a dwelling, and the more comfort a man has in his home,” he said, “the better work he is able to do, and the more content he becomes. In comfortable
