STATE HOUSING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 February 1939, Page 7

STATE HOUSING

MR ARMSTRONG ON AIMS & RESULTS I family requirements i not overlooked. RECORD OUTPUT LAST YEAR. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) MOTUEKA. February 23. Referring to suggestions made from time to time by city councils that the Government housing scheme was catering for one class of person, he who was in permanent employment and on a good wage and even then if he had only a small family, the Minister in Charge of Housing, Mr Armstrong, pointed out in an interview today that since the overwhelming majority of people were in employment naturally the Government was catering for the employed. The alternative would be to build houses of slum standard for the depressed section of the community. “I cannot agree, however.” said the Minister, "that we are catering only for those with small families. Our rentals for new houses are generally lower than anything charged for new housing of equal quality in the last decade. Where a person has a family some of whom are earning money, our rentals for a large family are exceedingly moderate. For a large family with no child yet earning, after next month Labour is providing in the social security schemes a motherhood endowment of 4s a child and is doing more to make the circumstances of such a family easier than has ever been attempted ed in any part of the world. "The rentals chargeable for our housing should set the maximum standard, because our housing is the best work-ing-class housing available today. Because of the acute housing shortage left by past Governments our rentals set a minimum standard. The best way to get cheap housing is not to reduce the standard but to aim at accelerating the output, as Labour is at present doing, by increasing the number of skilled craftsmen engaged in house building.

"It is well to appreciate that last year’s total of new houses was the highest in New Zealand’s history, and that this year should mark a similar increase. However, the stabilised conditions created by the Labour Government have brought an increase in mairiages, increased purchasing power and other beneficial results which are expressed in a greater demand for houses. Last year’s number of registered marriages was the highest on record, exceeded only in the year in which the soldiers arrived from the war. Obviously a large number of marriages which had been delayed during the unprosperous times when house building had practically ceased started to occur the moment Labour took office, in addition to which the birth-rate started to move up. If the rate for* the pi esent year is maintained a new record will be set,, and there is a possibility of the marriage rate being the highest in New Zealand’s history, exceeding even that subsequent to the Great War. "All these factors have accentuated the shortage, and, of course, the community has never found it possible to add tremendously to the housing requirements in any one year. To house the community decently requires a long period of sustained activity so that an army of craftsmen can gradually be built up. Only cumulatively can the problem be solved not in any one year. With the Labour Government in office the output of new houses will increase steadily."