STATE HOUSES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 211, 6 August 1937, Page 2

STATE HOUSES

QUESTION OF RENTAi-S. REPLY TO CRITICISM. A reply to criticism regarding the rentals to be charged for the new State houses was made by Mr Ormond Wilson, M.P., when a question on the subject was asked him at iiis political meeting in the Opera House, last evening. “A good deal lias been said about the rentals, and J welcome this opportunity to make the position clear,” said Mr Wilson. In the first place it had to be remembered that the houses were of very solid construction and were expected to last for 60 years; surely then, he added, an average rental of 25s a week could not be called excessive. “It may not be the rental which a relief worker can afford to pay, and wo could easily have built a host of cheap houses to suit the pockets of the relief worker,” declared Mr Wilson, “but our housing policy is based on the sound principle that every citizen is to he raised to a proper standard of living.” The Government was building for the future; to build for relief workers and sustenance men would have been obviously foolish because these people were going to be placed in a position of being able to pay decent rentals for decent houses, the speaker added.. The old capitalist system of the oldest and poorest houses for people with the lowest incomes could not be changed overnight, but it was going to be changed. Houses were to be provided, not according to the purses of the people, but according to their needs, he concluded.

1200 WORKERS ENGAGED. ALL READY TO START. (By Telegraph.—Special to Standard.) WELLINGTON, Aug. 6. “The State housing scheme is starting to gain momentum,” remarked Mr J. A. Lee, Under-Secretary in Charge, announcing that 1200 workers are now directly employed on the schemes in the six centres. This does not include associated workers making tiles, stoves, and milling timber, or the clerical staffs of building firms, and it is estimated that for every man actually on a building another is employed elsewhere in connection with the same job. “We are about to start building,” said Mr Lee, “at Invercargill. Oamaru, Timaru and Thames, and will shortly be building at New Plymouth, Masterton, Hastings and Westport, while the commencement is not far away in Greymouth, Nelson, Blenheim, Rangiora., Levin, Napier, Hamilton, Whangarei, Gisborne, Hawera and a number of other places. In most cases tenders have been called. A large amount of money has been made available by local authorities so, in all probability, there will be some hundreds of other houses planned of which we have no direct record.”