STATE HOUSES

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 6, 2 October 1943, Page 6

STATE HOUSES

Ex-Servicemen’s Needs

Dominion Special Service. AUCKLAND, October 1. The opinion that the scheme under which 50 per cent, preference was given to returned servicemen in the. allocation of State houses was not working out as well as had been expected was expressed by the president of the Auckland Returned Services Association, Mr. A. P. Postlewaite. He considered that the preference should be increased to 75 per cent, at least.

Under the scheme, he said, half the State houses available were allocated to returned men and half to civilians. The number of ■ex-servicemen for whom the lack of housing was a hardship was always • more than half the number of houses being allocated, and this surplus was constantly growing. Though many civilians bad been waiting for a long time for State houses, he thought their hardship was rarely as great, as that of the married rcturneil man who had come back with no home to go to. Even if these civilians had to wait still longer, he thought their claim was not as strong as that of the men who had fought.

On election day in the Eastern Maori constituency, a carrier pigeon was used to take the results from Motiti Island, off the northern Bay of Plenty coast, to Tauranga to ensure prompt recording with the returning officer in Gisborne, where the figures were ultimately received by telegram. 'l’his method,' tried for the first time in the electorate in. at least, recent years, proved so efficient that the Motiti Island return was recorded in Gisborne during the first hour after the closing of the poll.