STATE HOUSING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 July 1939, Page 4

STATE HOUSING

MINISTER ON PROGRESS MADE. MORE SKILLED MEN NEEDED. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day.

“The people who have got State houses have come out of hovels into Paradise,” said the Minister of Housing. Mr Armstrong, when speaking in the Address-in-Reply debate in the House of Representatives last night. “And, what is more, they are paying about 25 per cent less for their houses, then they were for their hovels,” he added.

The Minister said that apart from State houses altogether, the Government had lent more money than any other, except for one year during the administration of Sir Joseph Ward, through the State Advances Corporation. In 1931, £3.900,000 was lent for private building, but this amount had decreased by 1933 to a pitiful £3375, he said". For the year ended March, 1939. the total was £2,062.000, and in the coming year the amount would be considerably higher. “I want to pay a tribute to the architects of this country,” said Mr Armstrong. “They have shown a public spirit that is in sharp contrast to the attitude taken up by some other professional men in this country.” Mr Armstrong said that the housing programme was being held up because of a shortage of skilled men, but the department had 6000 men employed, and had secured the services of every builder in New Zealand who was capable of building a good house.