Homes for Workers

Maoriland Worker, Volume I, Issue 8, 20 April 1911, Page 2

Homes for Workers

A Great Thinker's Scheme Wellington, with, its acute housing problem, high rents, and jerryebuijt houses, trill be more than ordinarily interested in a new- phase of municipal progress, as disclosed in a letter we are enabled to publish to-day. Recently Dr Walter Thomas' Mills was made a special commissioner for the '.pity of Milwaukee, U.S.A. That city had purchased four thousand acres of. land, and expects to purchase more. It is planning workingmen's homes on a larger ecale tod under more rational and practicable plans tiian have ever before been-undertaken. The land will be laid out with wide boulevards, with grass and trees and iiowers and fountains' of water everywhere. . The houses will be real houses, and they are to be provided-to the workers at the cost of production, and that, when the production shall be large scale production "as well. EDISON'S GREAT SCHEME. It seemed to Dγ Mills that Milwaukee and Edison, could work together, and so he interviewed the great i nven t or - Writing to us, Dr. Mills says: 1 stated to Edison the nature of my. errand. He listened-with the greatest attention and without interruption until I had told my. story- of our city's plans. Then I said, ' f I ana ; here especially • to learn about the progress o± your plans for,- cement, houses,. and if it be found that our, city coul4 make use of your plans, whether we could deal with you direct .as a municipality." ... He was. on his . feet instantly. "Xet mc show, you what I am .doing,", he said, and at; once turned to a near-by table with a model of cement house completed in . full.. .-Every room with., double lights and. cross ventilation, all high, light, beautiful—-the- porch a model of comi'ort. The roof of red tile, the cement work, including foundations, walls, floors, stairways, and roofs, all completely reinforced, the joints in the house pipes of every kind effected by electric welding, all modern comforts and, conveniences in a working man's home. THE DESIGNS. He showed mc samples of the stone as, it will show in the completed wall— attention to the extensive art work" in design for both exterior and interior decoration. He showed • mc the nien working in clay, whose designs are afterwards mad© into plaster and finally cast into solid iron. Doorways, ceilings, windows, the cornices, all portions of "the house where ornamentation would be in order—-none are being neglected.. When it is remembered that the mci» still engaged on this work had been two years busily producing these designs; it can be understoood how varied are-these •models.: ■Hβ showed mc where the. castiiiig into ...iron was taking place, and, finally, on a great machine of his own invention; -the castiron forms are so •carefully milled that the parts are .made to fit together with such accuracy that not a cross- line wiir be 1 visible in the finished work. Hβ showed mc the halffinished structure rising as rapidly as the forms are ready. THE COST. He explained how the cement would be machine mixed, machine carried to the moulds, how completely the cement was protected' from bubbles,. arid finally, how -in process of use the forms would not be completely unbolted in going from one buildimg to another, but whole sections of the forms could be unbolted and carried on steel cranes directly from one structure to another, and so both taken down and lifted up with the least possible expenditure of time or toil. He gave mc estimates showing that thirty-seven men with a joint equipment costing- about 5000dol (J&1000) per man

could build "225 houses in a year at a* expense of SOOdol (.£160) a house, including their wages, .and that these houses could not be produced with the same comforts, under present methods for less than 5000dol (.£1000) each. "And then," said he, "they would be no sue)* houses as mine will be." These cement houses will be beautiful, sanitary; will have great variety, in architecture; cannot possibly hum up, and. will last for ever. They will be sound-proof, dustproof, damp-proof, and vermin-proof, easily heated, and' cool-- and comfortable in the warmest weather." A GREAT OPPORTUNITY. His final words to mc were, "My message to Milwaukee is that here is a great opportunity. She can entirely rebuild tlie homes of her city, and it will never cost the city nor the people in the city anything to do it. In the first place, I do riot want a dollar of profit out of my invention.'" Then he went on arguing to show that the city could issue its bonds, build the houses, sell them to the people, \iuth the instalment payments of the buyers pay off the bonds, that the buyers would not be paying in payments more than one-fourth of what they are . now '■■' paying in rents, and that the whole trailsaction need not exceed ten ' years while in process. THE -CONCLUSION. " _ - The conclusion was clear. Neither the city nor the people in the city would haye expended a dollar of other, funds. The city-s credit only would have Keen used—no city funds of any sort.: The purchasers would have been saving-three-fourths;, their rent, while making the. purchases. Surely, here is an op> . portuhity. - "., , - . Many thinkers hold that the whole world is soon to be rebuilt. There are reasons for thinking that it niay comesboneir than, the thinkers think..