THE HOUSING QUESTION.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 May 1919, Page 4

THE HOUSING QUESTION.

The housing question is acute everywhere in New Zealand, but in no place more so than in New Plymouth, the population of which is increasing at, a considerable rate. This position will be accentuated when several big works on the tapis are put in hand. Chief amongst them is the harbor extensions, which will absorb a great deal of labor. The engineer says he can do with 200 men almost right away. As the works proceed this number will probably be doubled. The Board is alive to the necessity for finding accommodation for its workers, a sub-committee being appointed at Tuesday's meeting to go into the matter. If all big concerns interested themselves in the housing of their employees the position would not be so difficult and there would not be half the discontent and unrest amongst the workers that there is to-day. Give an employee a comfortable house and congenial surroundings, and he is not disposed to quarrel with his job. In the past, few companies or local bodies lm taken any interest in the welfare of their employees outside their employment, but the time has come when this attitude must be changed if we are to have understanding rand co-operation, which alone will make for economic success. If the Government were alive to the necessities of the time and had any initiative or imagination, it would have propounded a scheme whereby money could be borrowed at a low rate of interest by companies, local bodies, and others employing large bodies of men j to build homes for the latter. Cheap i money is provided for local body works j

why not for workers' homes? If New Zealand is to make progress and realise its opportunities this housing question must first be solved, as it can be if our administrators would only wake up and take action. The members of the Cabinet in New Zealand will not move in this or any other matter because of the absence of the leaders. It is a good excuse for indulging their propensity for doing nothing, but the public are rapidly losing confidence in a body of men who haven't shown any independence, self-reliance, courage, or grasp of the needs of the hour. It has come to this, now, that the public believe the only way to effect an improvement is to turn them all out o'f office at the first opportunity and put in their plac a new set of men who will work and act and not pose and talk.