"MUST GO ON"

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 118, 15 November 1939, Page 11

"MUST GO ON"

HOUSING ACTIVITY

GOVERNMENT SCHEME

EFFECT OF WARY

The transfer of men, mostly carpenters, from State housing work to jobs in military camps had given the Housing Department a serious setback, and consequent difficulty had-been experienced in keeping bricklayers and plasterers going, said the Minister in-Charge of State Housing (tbe Hon. H. T. Armstrong) in an interview today. Now that the men were resuming work with the Department the /position so far as labour was concerned would be eased considerably, arid the programme for the Dominion would be pushed on as fast as possihle.

"There has been a falling-off in the humber of applications for, loans by people wishing to build their own homes, but it has not been nearly as marked as we expected it to be," said Mr. Armstrong. "Applications for rental houses, however, are just as numerous as ever. There are well over 6000 applications pending.in Wellington alone, and over 7000 in!- Auckland. For the Dominion; as a .whole the applications number about 20,000."

Some of the'merchants s were, concerned about supplies of piping v lead, electrical and other things that had to be imported if' the war continued for any length of tihie, but there had -actually been very little hold-up so far. So far as the Housing Department was concerned the things that it was necessary to import were only a small percentage of the material used. : In some districts where tiles were 7not' made corrugated iron was used for roofirig, but-&6m no*' on less corrugated iron: and more tiles would be- used; partly/because corrugated iron would not be. available and also to help in the conservation/ of the Dominion's sterlirig funds. -....-"

"We are definitely catching up with the leeway in the South Island, where the housing- shortage is not as serious as it is in parts of the North Island," Mr. Armstrong added, "biit I can see no prospect of .making very much impression on thie-shortage so far as'Wellirigton and v Auckland, are concerned for many years to come. If the war has the effect of causing private enterprise to build less, we will simply have to build more. The work must go on." - * *, * ;.*' -,'■ '■■ ' "'7 ■-•