RURAL HOUSING.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 April 1938, Page 4

RURAL HOUSING.

EFFECT UPON FARM LABOUR RENT OF FOUR SHILLINGS PER WEEK Not the least welcome feature of the new housing proposals (states an English exchange) is that whereby 30,000 cottages will be provided in rural districts at rents of three or four shillings a week, exclusive of rates. The unsatisfactory housing condition in many agricultural areas have undoubtedly been a main cause of the drift to the towns and the provision of good cottages at low rent is a boon that will do much to keep people on the land. The substantial subsidies now offered to both local authorities and private property owners in respect of cottages reserved for agricultural workers will transform the whole problem of rural housing, and Sir Kingsley Wood is to be congratulated on a notable advance in housing reform. While the Minister of Health has thus tackled the job of securing for the farm hand and his family a decent home at a low rent, he is not neglecting the question of maintaining the housing drive in the towns. A new scheme of subsidies has been designed to speed up the plans for putting an end to overcrowding and give a fresh impetus to the excellent work already done in clearing away the slums. Both cottages and flats will receive the subsidy. This will be graded upwards so that central sites conveniently near the people's places of work will be available for working-class dwellings without adding the necessarily higher cost of the lands to the rents. The rentals aimed at are from six shillings to eight a week exclusive of rates, and on this level the urban worker is assured of a healthy and comfortable home at a cost which will make no undue drain on his weekly earnings. The money required for this latest and most admirably designed housing programme will be money well spent.