The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 1885. HOMES FOR LABORERS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1356, 23 June 1885, Page 2

The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 1885. HOMES FOR LABORERS.

It is exactly twelve months this morning since we published Mr 'J. M. l'womey's address to the electors of Gladstone We refer to this because it is a peculiar coincidence that on this anniversary of the day we publish that part of K ir Julius Vogel's Financial Statement in which the scheme for providing homes for working men, which Mr Twomey then enunciated, haa bpen set forth as a pnrS of the policy of the present Government. In Mr Twomey's address appeared the following sentence : —" To settle the people on the land let the uoverr.ment buy five or six acres from the present owners, and lease them for life at a rental of 5 per cent, on the purchase money to agricultural laborers desirous of settling iu such homes." When he addressed the electors at Pleasant Point he explained the scheme fully, and when the Unemployed Commission visited Temuka he laid it before them. The Unemployed Commission gave prominence to it in their report, which has recently been laid before Parliament, and the scheme was otherwise brought under Sir Julius Vogel's notice. On the principle of giving " honour to whom honour is due," therefore, we refer to these facts, because without a question of doubt the honour of having originated this scheme belongs to Mr Twomey. Sir Julius Vogel in his Financial Statement spoke as follows :

" I cannot refrain from adverting to one special power which we desire to place at the optional disposal of local bodies a power which is as beneficent as it is likely to be profitable. I allude to providing dwelling, houses, with small areas of land .attached, for iaborers all over the country at moderate rents, on terms'of purchase by instalment. Suppose, to take an example, that a local body puts up a house at a cost of £BO on a piece of land of the value of £3O or £4O. The total cost would yield a return of 4s a weok, with a right to the fee-simple in about fourteen years, or ss, with a right to the fee simple in about ton years. We propose to except these dwellings whilst under lease from seizure for debt. They may be created by hundreds all over the colony. They will give to laborers resources and means of comfort, the warn of which has been .ipparent in this colony, and is painfully apparent i» older countries. The local bodies will run no rieks, for these properties will constantly acquire additional values, aod be good security for the liabi'ity upon them. As to thre properties, I am supposing lands to bo used in the vicinity of towns and country townships; they will become within the periods mentioned of great value." The idea of relegating its administration to local bodies was part of the original scheme, so that the only new thing in Sir Julius Vogel's proposal is that instead of giving a laborer a perpetual lease of his home he proposes to give it to him on terms that will enable him to acquire the fee simple of it in a certain number of years. And this small deviation from the original scheme destroys its grandest principle, and curtails its utility to a mischievous degree. Now, we ask our readers to consider Sir Julius Vogel's proposal. His proposal is that the local body shall build £BO worth of a house on L3O or L4O worth ff land, and sell it to a working man on the deferred -payment system. The amount which the local body will have expended on that house, therefore, is either LI 10 or Ll2o—wa shall put it at Ll2o—and this the local body will have to borrow. Sir Julius Vogel says that if a man pays 5s a waek for that for ten years it becomes his own, and that the transaction would be profitable. Let us remember that the local body had to borrow the money, and must pay at least 5 per cent, interest on it: that is, it must pay L 6 a year. This must be paid cut of the 5s per week, and, therefore, only 17 a ynar is left to extinguish the debt. From this L 7 a year also must be deducted at least LI for the cost of administration, leaving ODly the balance ot L 6 a year to pay off the original debt of Ll2O. Now supposing the L 6 a year is invested at compound interest for ten years, will it realise Ll2O ? It will not, nor amount to more than between L 75 and LBO and thus at the end of ten years the local body will find that it has parted with the home and is at a loss of L4O by the transaction. Then, again, supposing the laborer tor whose behoof this land and bouse had been bought takes it into his head to leave, will he not sell his home to the highest bidder ? Of course he will, and the highest bidda will without doubt be some adjoining landowner who will absorb the cotter's few

acres into his own farm, and thus would | pnd the working man's home. In 50 years' time every one of these homes would be absorbed into the largfr holdings, and not one of them would be in existence. Is it then worth while to bother with them ? Wo have shown n ow—first, that the amount Sir Julius Vogel proposes to charge for those homes would not be sufficient ; also that in the course of time these very homes would fall back into the- hands of the larger land owners and therefore would not be worth taking 1 up. Let us now examine the original schemp. Mr Twonaey proposed tint the home should be given to the working man on a perpetual lease, at 5 per cent, on the purchase money. Thus the man who would have to pay Ll3a year-r-or, in fact, Ll6—under Sir Julius Vogel's scheme would have to pay only L 6 a year under Mr Twomey's proposal. Ihere would thus be a great difference in the yearly rental for the finst ten years ; but this is not the point so much as that the homes for working men would never be sold. Sir Julius Vogel's scheme would enable the working man to sell, and, as wo have shown, his home: would eventually fall into the hands of larger land owners : Mr Twomey'* original scheme would not give the working man power to sell, If the working man wanted to give up one of these ft'omea he would leave it as he got *fc, and the local body would let it to the next eligible applicant for it—and thus each succeeding generation of working men would be provided with homes, Now, which proposal is the best ? Is it not better to keep these homes perpetually for working men than to give them on terms which will undoubtedly cause them to fall into the hands of ajoining land owners in a few years ? There is another point—Sir Julius Vogel proposes to give local bodies a subsidy for the next 25 years, and at the end of that term to stop it. Now, if the perpetual leasing system of the working men's homes were adopted, the original debt incurred in the erection of homes would be wiped off in 25 years, and henceforward the rents from them would be a grand source of revenue to the local bodies, ftir Julius Vogel made the alteration indicated in the scheme just to try to give it an air of originality and claim it as his own, but in doing this he has spoiled it. It is to be hoped, however, that the House will see fit to alter back again to the perpetual leasing, for that is the only system tinder which it can be worked, beneficially.