BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, JUNE 25, 1948 HOLIDAY HOUSES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 60, 25 June 1948, Page 4

BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, JUNE 25, 1948 HOLIDAY HOUSES

In his presidential address to the annual meeting of the Dominion Council of the R.S.A. at Wellington on Wednesday, Mr C. O. Bell made it clear that his Association, and the other exService Associations, were not satisfied with the housing situation and the Government’s methods of handling it. In the opinion of his Association, he said, the non-inclusion of holiday accommodation in the Fair Rents Amendment Act made that Act useless. They felt sure that at least 1,000 houses with reasonable living amenities and close enough to employment could have been made available, and would have been the biggest contribution to easing the situation it was possible to achieve.

Those remarks have particular force here. There are a number of small houses and a few reasonably large ones vacant at Ohope now. Nor can they be regarded as suitable for holiday accommodation only. True, some are available for rents that would make a millionaire turn pale, but their,inclusion in the provisions of the Fair Rents Amendment Act would make a worthwhile contribution to the desperate housing situation here, provided, of course, maximum , rentals were fixed. It will be recalled that both sides of the House agreed to the deletion of a clause, suggested by the R.S.A., for the inclusion of holiday accommodation in the scope of the Act. True, it would have been an interference with property rights. So is the whole Act, for that matter. So also was its parent, the Fair Rents Act. .

But, as Mr Bell also pointed out, conscription was an interference with personal liberty. However, it was introduced in a time of national emergency, and had the support of the majority of the people as something nein the circumstances. It is probably no over-state-ment to say that the greatest single problem affecting the welfare of the people of this country today is the housing situation. Bound up with that . are the moral and physical health of the children, the question of shortages of skilled workers where and when they are needed, and the effective rehabilitation of ex-service personnel.

No man can be expected to re-build a natural happy life unless he has some place to house his family. No mother can be expected to bring children up in refinement and decency if she has to try to do it in an overcrowded hovel where those very words are a mockery. This is a national emergency. And if those who can help will not, then there is justification for compulsion, and the fact that a leader in a body such as the R.S.A. takes that view should considerably strengthen the Government’s hand if it decides to extend the scope of the present legislation.