The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 1920. THE ETERNAL HOUSING PROBLEM.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3532, 21 July 1920, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 1920. THE ETERNAL HOUSING PROBLEM.

With which is incorporated “The Taihape Post and Waimarino ftews.”

In the lirst issue of Hansard recording the sayings of Members of the initial session of a new Parliament there are many remarkable statements, but none seems more astonishing than that made by a South Island farmer, Mr D. Jones, Kaiapoi’s elect. Mr

Jones had the honour of seconding the Address-in-Reply, and in the course of Lis rather confident remarks he argued in opposition to settling the'people on the land; he said the land was not the source of all wealth. Technically, in being super-precise; if it may be put that way, Mr Jones is correct, for there are reports that nitrogen is obtained from air, .and it is well known that all fish come from oceans, rivers, lakes, or some other description of water in bulk. But some scientists assert that air, water and land are atomically of like nature, and differ only in appearance, iby variance of atomic density. On the other hand Mr Jones may have referred to wealth made in secondary industries, if so he would be fully aware that in such industries labour * increases the value of primary products bj* remodelling and does not make wealth in any other way. The miller adds to the value of wdieat by grinding it into flour, the artisan adds to the value of gold by refining it and shaping it into artistic designs and by minting if, but all wealth comes from the land first, despite Mr Jones’ new version of the source of wealth. In elaborating His argument the seconder of the Address-in-Reply disclosed that his real purpose was to show that it. was a mistaken notion to put men on the land; he said that New Zealand’s great need to-day was that “we have not got enough men in the towns, and we have not realised it.” He belittled the idea that New Zealand was suffering because the bulk of the people are being driven into towns, contending that it was manufactured goods, or the products of towns that New Zealand was languishing for rather than for that primary production from which tJ' wealth springs. Ho staled that no country could become great upon primary production, but it is more correct to say that no country - can become great, nor can mankind exist upon this old earth without primary production. People cannot live or find work in towns without primary production. then the first essential is to 1 have as largo a source of food ami raw material as can bo built up before commencing to urg'd a drift of people into towns. Factories in New Zealand cun only prove remunerative if they

two made to use up the raw materials that tire produced from (lie land. Lvidently Mir Jones is not versed in economics or he would not have so egreg Piously bln mb ■rod in discussing the science in its elementary stages. He was no more fortunate in his view of the housing problem, lie stated that money was not the most "important, essential to housebuilding, he thought it was labour. We think if is due to the shortage of both money and labour, to which may discreetly be added, materiiils, for there is a wold shortage of house-building material. a shortage which has resulted in rendering material so expensive that wage-earners cannot earn enough to pay the rent that must be asked by private houseowners (o compensate, them for cost of erection. Another important bearing upon the housing problem is the cost of land. Mr Jones does not realise, perhaps ho does not know, that parliaments in older countries have been dismayed and consblora.l>y exercised ove v the fact that gathering,- people into largo cities results in land becommg so dear that workers cannot ’ive

that is a condition which the New Zealand Parliament has now to concern itself about. Land in New Zealand cities has become so dear that \vork- | ers cannot pay the rent that owners must charge for it to get any remuneration for themselves, A few years ago a -parliamentary committee on congestion of population in Now York reported “that the (unskilled wageearner cannot live in New York, maintaining himself and family in ordinary decency, as land values are too high to permit of him doing so.” Land at forty pounds a. foot crushed out the lowest paid labour; at sixty pounds per foot frontage excluded skilled labour. The Committee’s finding was, “It is impossible to house properly the unskilled working population upon land that is worth more than sixty pounds a foot frontage at the outside.” In London the housing problem has for many years been the County Council’s most difficult problem to solve. In later years it had commenced to solve itself through the operation of laws of supply and demand. Tenements became overcrowded and doss-houses became a menace to the health of the where city’s population. Many were forcibly closed .without finding other shelter for their habitues, who had not ' the means to pay for anything better. } In the outward drift many died of starvation; London had become too closely packed with human beings to render life tolerable or even possible. A drift outward set in, and those who I could afford to live outside the County boundaries with the help of very much reduced railway fares made more room for those who were too poor to get out. Solution of the housing problem in large cities should convince any man, politician and lotherwise, that disaster can only result from crowding people into cities where land is so highly valuable that it is impossible for workers to live decently upon it. The London County Council, at the direction of Parliament, spent no less than a million (and a-quarter some years ago’ in providing houses for workers in London who could have been more economically provided for in suburban areas. It resulted in land producing only a tithe of what it would have brought if devoted to commercial development, the income of revenue to the Council. This was not the full extent of loss in rates, as the city became unduly crowded and an obvious menace to health, wealthy people commenced to drift out, leaving many mansions empty, and in the returns for August I 1910, there were no less than 43,508 empty houses in twenty-six boroughs of Loudon, including Westminster. In New York conditions have, if anything, been worse than in London, and there is yet no solution of the housing problem in either capital. The concensus of opinion gathered-, from all reports to the London County Council and also from the- Committee on Congestion of Population in New York is, “that it is in the best interests of the community as a whole that population should be moved where they can be housed healthfully.’'’ Rightly or wrongfy, the Committee also states “that the vast amount of money expended by taxpayers of the city as a whole upon hospitals and other institutions is in large measure,the price the taxpayer is paying as the penalty of the greed of landlords.” But who will urge that property rights of bindowners be confiscated, in the absence of just and workable laws for securing a healthy housing of the country’s population? The Committee’s suggestion. strikes at the very root of individual ownership, for it is apparent that there will be competition for business sites in the very -largest centres , of population that must result in making the land too valuable for workers j to live upon. Therefore, instead of j hording the people together in cities ns j Mr D. Jones, the Member for Kaiapoi, i advocates they should be moved out- j ward to where they can be housed j healthfully. The only other alternative j is that the State should cut out com- | petition for city land by reducing such land lo a dead level va'luc which would bring it within what workers can at--1 ford to pay for i 1 to live upon. But i most, business people will realise at j once (hat such a cure would be worse j than the disease. Obviously, the I

State is receiving rales in proportion

tin the value competition puts- upon city land, it. should therefore' provide ane.li cheap travelling as will enable workers lo give city dand entirely up to commercial purposes rtf needs warrant it. '1 he NVw Zealand (tovernruent is repeating the British Parliament's blunder in spending Imge sum-' of money to house workers in the city, while they could be u\orc economically and. healthfully housed In suburbs, whore their children could be reared in a healthful atmosphere and where play room is available. The British blunder resulted in between four and five thousand houses being empty, houses which, workers could not afford to pay the rent for. As the maximum value® in cities would return the maximum cf taxation the State would bo compensated for whatever cheapening of railway transit w r as necessary t" take wnrk r p« to h'm’thful homes in the suburbs. The housing problem is but with humane and generous

consideration it is quite amenable to satisfactory solution. First and 'foremost it seems imperative that the great desideratum is to build up the maximum that primary production the country is capable of, and to do that surplus labour must bo turned back from cities on to producing areas in the cam try.