“APPALLING POVERTY”

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 206, 19 November 1927, Page 16

“APPALLING POVERTY”

RENT RESTRICTIONS MUST CONTINUE COUNCIL REINTRODUCES BILL (THE SUN'S Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON. Friday. “In no year could it have been so unsafe to remove rent restrictions as the present owing to the widespread distress created by unemployment,” said Sir Francis Bel! Leader of the Legislative Council’ in moving the reintroduction of the Rent Restriction Continuance Bill. The Bill, which was previously rejected by 15 votes to 14, to-day passed the second reading. * AMENDMENTS to the Bill recommended by the Labour Bills Committee will be moved when the measure is in committee on Tuesday. They provide for the extension of rent re. striction until January 1. 1929. Special provision is made with respect to the recovery of possession of a dwelling, house by a landlord, as follows: “Where a landlord has entered into a bindin • contract for the sale of the freehold of a dwelling-house (whether alone or together with other lands), he shall be entitled to apply to a stipendiary magistrate for an order for possession of the dwelling-house, and if the magistrate, upon the hearing of such application is satisfied that such contract effects a real and genuine sale, the landlord shall be entitled to an order for the recovery of possession of the house at such date (being a date not later than three months from the date of the hearing), as the magistrate, under all the circumstances of the case, deems it just to appoint.” LANDLORDS GRIEVANCE Moving the second reading of the Bill, Sir Francis Bell said it was largely his fault that the position, as the Government understood it, and the reasons why it thought it necessary that rent restriction should continue, were not placed before the Council on the occasion when it rejected the Bill. The Labour Bills Committee had heard the evidence of officials of the Labour Department, members of Parliament representing congested districts in Wellington and Auckland, and two capable witnesses who presented the case for the landlords. The committee had reported that if rent restriction was to continue it should be continued subject to the main grievance of landlords as understood by the committee, namely, that the existence of the restriction prevented the sale of the freehold. The proposed amendment met that grievance. WORST FOR 30 YEARS The Government contended, in view of its investigation of present conditions —and the evidence submitted to the committee supported that contention —that in no year could it have been so unsafe to remove rent restriction as in the present. The Under-Secretary of Labour had reported that conditions had not been so bad in respect of unemployment and poverty for 30 years. No one was unaware that never were the condition of the poorer classes in danger of greater charges on their present slender incomes than at present. No real hardship was being inflicted upon any landlord by a continuance of what was ensured to him in rent under the present law. In addition to the reasons already given, there was the unanimous request of charitable aid boards, who feared, and knew that the burden of the payment of the rent of a large class, now cast upon their shoulders, would be increased to an extent impossible to bear. The Government could not complain if the Council decided not to pass the Bill, but that would be the responsibility of the Council. Sir Francis Bell added: “I hesitate to speak from my own knowledge or even that of the Minister of Labour of what the position is among the class of poor tenants affected. The despair that exists at present among the poorer classes is to me appalling. To treat the matter entirely as one of political economy when faced with the knowledge of the circumstances of the poor people this year is, I believe, quite impossible.” The Bill was read a second time.