HOUSING POLICY

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 205, 15 September 1937, Page 3

HOUSING POLICY

— Prcss Association.)

"Past Governments Much More Generous" MEMBER'S CLAIM

(By Telegraph-

WELLINGTON, Last Night. Speaking on the housing problem in the House of Representatives to-day, Mr S. G. Smith (Nat., New Plymoutli) admitted that the position was one which called for immediate solution, but he doubted if tlie Government was going about the matter in the correct way. He suggested that tlie people should be given an opportunity of aequiring their own ■ homes and asked if the Minister would give tlie people facilities through the State Advances Office to do so. Past Governments had been much more generous and helpful to tlie people iai liejping them to acquire their own homes than the present Government. Had the Nationalist Party been returned to power, with tlie increased money in the country it would have done all that the present Government had done, only in a different way, Mr Smith added. Mr J. A. Lee, Member in Charge of State Housiug, contrasted the policy of the Coalition Government in regard to housing with. that of the present Administration which, he said, ^ had nothing to bo ashamed of in this respect-. Tho cost of living iai 1937, Mr Lee stated, was 104 points below what it was in 1929. He admitted there had been increased Government expenditure, but he would remind them that 8000. invalid pensioners were now receiving money from the Government wlio had not bpen doing so from the previous Government. He contended that New Zealand-5 s present marketing policy had been a stupendous success and for the first time in years New Zealand liad been able to close the gap whicli separated the Danish product from that of New Zealand. The Government's marketing policy had paid a liundredfold for the tri.p of tlie Minister of Finance. Mr K. J. Holyoake (Nat. Motueka) asked if there were as many houses being built to-day as there should be. He contended that the liouse-building figures at preseiit were not nearly up to the average of previous normal years. The country was enjoying marked prosperity and our exports were valued at £29,000,000 more than in the depth of tlie sluinp, so lie could not see the necessity for a single person being unemployed.