The Daily News. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18. TO HELP HOME-MAKERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 188, 18 November 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18. TO HELP HOME-MAKERS.

One of the most important questions in any country is the comfortable, hygienic and permanent housing of the people, for as there is a tendency towards increase of population in towns, it seems essential that those who live in the centres of population shall be helped in any way that adds to their utility as citizens, to their self respect, and for their general prosperity and betterment. The widespread system of speculation which enters into every activity in the Dominion, has not been conducive to the good housing of the people, and the persistent success in raising the prices of all urban and suburban lands has made it practically impossible for a man without considerable means to become his own landlord. The average worker without organised and efficient help finds it a hopeless task to buy a house of his own. Ability to do so in a majority of cases would increase his utility as a citizen, would make it more likely that he become a permanent citizen, and would inevitably lessen the speculative enterprise that in the past ten years has given New Zealand a new class of rich whose money has been made from high rents and unworthy dwellings. The majority of householders in any town in New Zealand are under the circumstances rentpayers, and almost any of these rentpayers must necessarily have in the course of years spent enough money for the purchase of a permanent home. The necessities of the case were so apparent that there was no difficulty in getting the Government to devise a benevolent system that, should it be successful, is capable of great extension and general application. Under the Workers Dwellings Bill the home-maker who Is able to produce £lO has security of tenure for 25 years, at the expiration of which he is a freeholder, and, of course, independent of all charges, other than those necessarily made by local bodies. Thus it is clear that the worker may secure for himself possession of a home for a less sum than the rent he would probably have to pay to a private landlord. He will be able to choose the type of dwelling he desires, and, after his deposit of £lO, pays seven per cent, on the capital value of the property. He may, of course, shorten the period of 25 years by payment of increased sums, and it is laid down that the payments for shortening the term shall be of sums of £7 or multiples of this amount. A weekly I payment of 13s 6d would under the Bill purchase a property valued at £SOO in 25 years. The fact that hundreds of workers pay a larger sum than this in rent indicates the advantages to be gained under the Government's new system. The Government has allocated a sum of £200,000 for the purpose of workers' dwellings for the coming year, so that if the scheme is successful and becomes permanent upwards of one thousand workers per annum will become their own landlords. There is reason to believe that if workers seeing the advantage of the scheme .enter into it, that the operations of the Act will be extended. The point for the public is the Government cannot afford to enter on an unprofitable enterprise. Therefore if the enterprise pays a sufficient interest on the money invested in it, it will prove that the worker has been paying far too dearly for the privilege of mere residence. The security of tenure to be afforded under the Act is of the greatest importance. During the extraordinary period of speculation in which rented buildings were the basis of daily hanter, the rent-payer was so frequently inconvenienced that he was in a chronic state of "shifting." Small houses bought by capitalists—and particularly by small speculators—have in innumerable cases been merely held for a rise, for under the wretched system of building which has operated during the period of speculation few owners cared to "hang on" until the match-box type of building fell to decay or blew down in a gale. It is, therefore, encouraging that the Government shows a disposition to build for the people, and there is no doubt that an improvement in the type, material and building of dwellings will teach a much needed lesson to the jerrybuilders of the centres and elsewhere. Real home-making is less common in New Zealand than it should be, because the heavy rent-payer is in a chronic state of unrest, is not sure of his tenure, and, naturally enough, does not care to , improve a property held by another man. The ideal community is a community i each member of which is the owner of his own home. Such a community naturally takes a personal interest in the advancement of a town or a suburb, is interested in municipal undertakings, street planning, beautifying, sanitation, and so on. If the Government scheme is successful, it is certain that private owners, in self protection, must agree to lift the heavy hand that is now placed on the tenant. In short, if the Government can afford to be fair and equitable, the private capitalists can afford to follow suit. The expansion of this new" enterprise of the State would go a long way to making permanent New Zealanders of the people who availed themselves of the opportunity afforded, and would assuredly reduce the "floating population." A man is less liable to "pull up stakes" and quit a town when he is •tethered to it by a property of his own, unless, as in so many eases, he has acquired it "for a rise." It is perfectly clear that there are many folk who see no limit to the increase in value, and it is noteworthy that in the Workers Dwellings Bill the estimated value of a house to-day is the estimated value of the same property twenty-five years hence. Tf the Government was convinced that the increases in the alleged values of house properties during the past ten years were just and equitable and that the present values would increase in like proportion, they might have inserted a clause providing! for revaluation evenfive years or so. But there is no such harsh intention indicated in a measure