HOUSES ON FARMS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 July 1939, Page 7

HOUSES ON FARMS

GOVERNMENT PROPOSING TO ACT SERIOUS DIFFICULTIES. THE MORTGAGE PROBLEM. (By Telegraph—-Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. “The Government thinks that the time has arrived to give some attention to the provision of houses for farm labour,” said the Minister of Housing. Mr Armstrong, when speaking in the Address-in-Reply debate in the House of Representatives yesterday. "However, it is a job that bristles with difficulties,” he said. One of the chief difficulties, said the Minister, was that the Stale Advances Department, which financed housing, did not want to take second or third mortgages, and the Government did not want to override existing first mortgages. Some mortgagees had given their consent to allow their mortgages to be adjusted to give the State priority, but where this could not be arranged, it would be a pretty bold step to override existing mortgagees. “The provision of farm cottages for married couples is probably more urgent than the provision of new homes for farmers themselves.” said the Minister. “The greatest need seems to be on dairy farms, and it appears that till this need is met. farmers will have difficulty in retaining their labour. 11 1 remain in charge of the State Advances Department, a great deal mote will be done'than has been done up to the present. I believe that good housing for farmers and farm labour can be arranged with State assistance,, but I do not believe that a 100-acre iarm needs a house costing £l2OO or so. because it would immediately place another £lO or so an acre on to the larmer’s indebtedness. The Government had the will to do the job. said the Minister, but it bristied with difficulties. The co-opera-tion of everybody interested was needed It was obvious that irregular employment on farms led many men to leave one country district for another and never come back. County councils could arrange their work so that then would be employment in a district all the year round. The Minister said that, the present Government had done very much more than its nredecessor in providing loans from ’the State Advances Department. Loans in the last year ot th last Government had amounted only m £lO6 000, but last year the Governmcn made available £8,260.000. of which £4 260.000 was lent to home builders and farmers. A further £4,000.000 was spent on rental houses. In n \ h o r e c years, the Government had lent £18,6a0,000. “Every member of the Opposition is asking us to spend more.” the Minister concluded, "but in their speeches in the House they are accusing me of tm owing the country into bankruptcy.