BUSINESSMEN GET BEHIND MOVE FOR HOUSE COMMITTEE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 30, 26 August 1949, Page 5

BUSINESSMEN GET BEHIND MOVE FOR HOUSE COMMITTEE

Wednesday night’s general meeting of the Whakatane Chamber of Commerce unanimously decided to write to the Minister in charge of State Housing backing up the representations that have been made to him to have a State housing allocation committee appointed here. Mr T. M. Wilkes, who moved that the letter be written after the subject had meen introduced by Mr D. C. Stevens, gave the opinion that it was going to be distressing for anyone who got appointed to the committee, but the job was one that had to be done.

'“We’ve got to have that committee sooner or later,” he declared. “It won’t get us any more houses, perhaps, but it will undoubtedly get us a fairer allocation of those that are available.

“After all, on the spot you can form a much more reliable opinion than you can by correspondence,” commented the president, Mr R. T. Morpeth, who said it was easy perhaps for a man with a fluent pen to put over a much more convincing case at a distance than he .could under investigation by a committee who would know local conditions and could compare his circumstances with others.

It had been pointed out to the meeting that representations had already gone forward from the Labour Party’s local branch and from the Home Servicemen’s Association, with quite hopeful reactions from Wellington.

Seconded by Mr S. G. Hirst, Mr Wilkes’s motion was carried unanimously.