SERIOUS PROBLEM

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 30, 19 May 1947, Page 8

SERIOUS PROBLEM

SHORTAGE OF BUILDING MATERIALS To leave the matter in the hands of individual builders will not bring the results wanted. Only the State, with power to commandeer all materials and as the only organisation big enough to handle large scale methods of construction, can cope with the present situation. This assertion was made by Mr W. A. Jamieson, secretary of the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Carpenters’ and Joiners Union, in commenting on an article in a Wellington newspaper concerning unfinished houses at Taita and elsewhere and the problem of supplies of building materials. That such a shortage of materials would arise had been .forecast by the union some years ago, said Mr Jamieson, and considerable thought had been given to avoiding or, failing that, remedying the position. As an organisation which had taken an active and constructive interest in the problems of the building industry, the Carpenters’ Union had discussed many times with the Government the obstacles to a speedy solution of the housing shortage.

In 1938 the union took the initiative in surveying the industry and compiling its findings in a booklet published in 1941 by the Building Trades Federation, “The Workers’ Plan for the Building Industry,” which set out the general steps necessary to ensure homes for the people. A further booklet wilLdeal in detail with the technical issues involved, but the article made it necessary, said Mr Jamieson,, to deal now with some of the most glaring anomalies and absurdities,hampering the Government’s housing scheme. “The Carpenters’ Union submits that only overall planning will achieve satisfactory results. The matter must be declared a national emergency and tackled with all the resources of the State. “Regimentation of the builders to the building of houses would not, as the article states, be popular with the builders, nor would it in any case produce the desired result, as the materials would still be thinly spread with consequent hold-ups.

“Realising the limitations of existing State Departments,” said Mr Jamieson, “the union advocates the setting up of a State housing construction corporation under competent business administration, with union representation on the management, to undertake the actual construction of State housing. Only by handling the matter on the same scale and with the same aggressiveness as was done with defence works will be able to meet and overcome this No. 1 national problem.”