The Daily News. THURSDAY, JULY 14. HOUSING THE PEOPLE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 81, 14 July 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, JULY 14. HOUSING THE PEOPLE.

The people of New Zealand are not particularly well housed, and in the generality of residential portions of tne country they pay more for the privilege of living inside walls than almost any people in the world. There are many causes for the dearness of housing accommodation. The first and chief is the exorbitant and utterly false price of-all land, whether urban, suburban or productive. Another cause is the dearness of material, and a frantic desire on the part of Dominion suppliers to prevent the importation of building material . from other countries. Then, of course, there is the ever-present difficulty of labor. In New Zealand houses are often, "slapped up" with the least possible attention to good workmanship, not because the New Zealand workman is not as good a workman as the workman of other countries, but because of the bad example set by jerry-builders and the desire to make as large a profit as possible in as short a time. The majority of dwelling houses now serving their purpose in New Zealand will be utterly useless in twenty years' time, and as the majority of these houses are rented at exorbitant rents—because of the price of land, the price of timber, the heaviness of rates, and so on—it follows that the tenant buys the house he lives in and the land on which it stands for his landlord. This is a fair business proposition as long as things remain as at present. The housing problem is more difficult in countries that have been densely populated for hundreds of years, but in older countries private philanthropy is at present effecting splendid work. In London, for instance, there are now being built dozens of tenement houses that will take the place of the unspeakable "court" slums, specially devised, apparently, t« give their tenants the worst possible chance of healthy existence. The chief . problem in New Zealand is the dearness of rent and the general impossibility—as far as the worker is concerned—of ever obtaining a permanent residence of his own. The general average in most fairly thickly populated districts of New Zealand is that a worker pays one-third of his wages to his landlord. No fair person will deny that any man should be able to buy the fee simple of a section and a house for a third of his weekly earnings, but even if some method for the orenera] redretion of rentals could be devised, it would be an immense advantage to the people generally. At present, arrangements for the housing at the people in New Zealand are "higgledy piggledy," and under no supervision. A scheme of cheap cottage building in England is worth examination. To meet the requirements of durability and cheapness the system of building with concrete blocks was adopted. The blocks were cheaper than bricks to make, and cheaper than bricks to put together, and as the house arriv d upon the site in the shape of several heaps of gravel and a number of sacks of cement, the cost of haulage was greatly lessened. The inside walls were made in the same way with smailer blocks. These internal walls, except in the scullery and offices, were covered with hand-smoothed plaster, which goes directly on to the concrete blocks, giving a solid', impermeable, and hygienic surface. The houses each contained five rooms, excluding pantry and offices, and all the rooms but one had a fireplace. The buildings were erected in pairs at a cost of £l5O each, apart from the land. In New Zealand; the almost invariable rule for building dwellings is to erect them in timber, because timber has been the most readily available. The fact that it has been more readily available has had no effect on the lessening of the cost, and as the timber supply of New Zealand is quickly disappearing, it seems likely that other and more permanent material Avill be necessary. The idea of building a house of the kind mentioned in the above extract for the price stated would be hailed with derision by any New Zealand builder, and yet the necessity for cheapening dwellings is obvious even to the builder. A glance at the city papers will shqw that houses of no permanence and of the size mentioned above would return from £1 to 30s a ■week, according to the dearness of the fend in the city containing the houses. The Government has already shown that, even with land at a high figure, it is possible to house people at a much lesser rent than is demanded by private owners, but the fact that there is no extensive method if dealing with the housing problem makes the need as great as ever. Tn every city in New Zealand the boards of benevolent trustees are faced with the eternal rent problem .every week. Almost all aplicants for charitable aid, when questioned, mention at once the chief burden—'the rent. Extensive building in all large centres of houses that would be let at a much lower rental than those ruling and which might be ultimately acquired bv the tenants,, would have some effect •in generally diminishing rents. But the

fictitious, value of all land in a country which has enormous areas of Nv-.-sed

lands is the chief drawback to any reform. Some day the people generally will return to their senses, and land will be only worth what it will produce, or what can be built on it.