HOUSING AND "COSTLESS" CREDIT.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 39, 2 March 1937, Page 6

HOUSING AND "COSTLESS" CREDIT.

The unaimounced and hurried visit paid to Hastings yosterday by Mr. J. A. Lee, M.P., again draws local attention to ihe State Housing Scheme, of which he is in charge. So far; as reported, nothing yery definite has yet come of his visit beyond tlie fact that he has inspected certain areas within the borough that have been submitted by the owners as providing suitable sites for .workers' homes. Mr. Lee has also proraised to give consideration to a proposal of the Hastings Fire Board to erect dwellings on convenient sites for active members of the voilunteer Eire Brigade. For, word of furthe^ developments we shall. naturaly have to wait a while. In the meantime, however, it may be assumed that there is no suggestion that the Hastings Borough Council should in any way reconsider its previous deeision not to avail itself of the offer of loan money with which to build houses for letting to workers. That deeision was reached on quite sound grounds, ineluding past rather unhappy experiences. It will, we think, he pretty generally conceded that, with such a comprehensive scheme in view as that which the Government is* undertaking, it wouild be little short of folly for any, except perhaps the biggest, of the munlcipalities to enter into competition with it, for that is obviously what would be involved. There can thus be no solid argument in favour of loading a small body of local ratepayers with the risk of the losses that would almost assuredly be ineurred under such conditions. • Especially is this the case when we beax in.mind htat the loan money to be supplied was to hear interest at customary local body rates, while no one as yet knows whether the Government purposes paying, or even debiting itself with, any interest at all on the building fund it proposes to "create" on the national Credit through the Reserve Bank. As has previously been said, the Government, whose members at election time made such great play with this method of national finance, is now observing the rnost profound secrecy with regard to the methods by which it is being brought into practice. All that the public is allowed to know— and that only from returns compulsorily published by the Reserve Bank — is that on its Dairy Industry Aceount it has borrowed some £G£-million and close on another £2-million "for other purposes," none of which have been disclosed at all. To these is now apparently to be added anything from £3-million to £5-miillion for the promotion of the Housing • Scheme. This will be a purely capital account, as distinguisbed from the Dairy Account, which is primarily a working account and may thus, by a little stretch, be held to be fairly legitimate banking business, so long as it is debited with a reagonable rate of interest. What is to happen if, as seems entirely likely, a pretty serious loss is disclosed when a bal-ance-sheet is made up at the end of the exporting season is, of course, quite another thing. * What, however, the public want and are entitled to know precisely is how and on what terms the Government is work" ing these advanees. They are avowedly being secured against the "national credit" — the capacity of the taxpayers to pay — and the "nation" is surely entitled to some information as to how this is being used. During the election campaign the leaders of the Labour Party were intensely proud of their "national finance" policy, but why are they now so sedulously "hiding their light under ^ bushel," Why, too, wjth this professedly inexhaustible fount of "costless credit" to draw from, is it necessary to borrow at interet in the ordinary way some £6-million for public works and, at the same time, impose another £6-million of extra taxation wherewith to pay pensirns and unemployment oqtgoings? Is it found that the machine does not work as smoothly, saf.ely and productively as was represented?