Days of future past
A century ago, with the nation in the grip of the influenza pandemic, attention turned to the state of New Zealand housing. Big city slums were identified as a potential breeding ground for disease. Tensions emerged between local and central government over how to best identify and deal with the problem, with the Mayor of Auckland, J. H. Gunson and the Minister of Health, a certain Mr Russell, trading threats and insults in public.
In Hamilton, Mayor John Fow endorsed the position of his northern counterpart, finding unanimous support in council. Councillor Snell thought the matter should be ‘‘taken further’’, suggesting that local bodies present a united front to the government, demanding Russell’s resignation.
Furthermore, he stated that ‘‘all was not perfect in the borough’’, suggesting that the council had been unable to condemn unfit dwellings because of resistance from the Health Department.
Snell’s accusations received a swift response. A. P. Bennett, the town’s official Health Inspector, wrote to the Waikato Times two days later, pointing out there were no slums in Hamilton, ‘‘ . . . because every house in the borough is a detached dwelling’’. Bennett conceded that there were individual ‘‘dirty houses’’, but none consistently so nor collectively grouped. Quoting relevant legislation, he argued that the city councillors themselves had as much authority as he to take action in such cases. That they and the town bureaucrats had resisted using these powers was an instance of avoiding responsibility lest they offend ‘‘friends or neighbours’’. That said, there was ‘‘no case on record of the Health Department having vetoed the condemnation of any building’’.
The Waikato Times featured a finger wagging editorial later that week, admonishing the country as a whole for putting up with slums and lamenting the political spat. The Hamilton Borough Council was praised for taking a proactive stance, having ‘‘set up a committee to go thoroughly into the matter of municipal housing’’. Bennett’s denials did not warrant a mention.
However, much Hamilton housing did or did not contribute to the problem, the town lost 54 citizens to the influenza, just under one per cent of its population.