RENT RESTRICTION.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 274, 19 November 1927, Page 17

RENT RESTRICTION.

APPROVED BY COUNCIL.

EXPENDED TO JANUARY 1, 1929

"ILLOGICAL BUT EXPEDIENT."

(By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.)

WELLINGTON, Friday,

The Rent Restriction Continuance Bill, rejected by the Legislative Council early in the session, but now admitted for reconsideration, was to-day approved by the Upper House on the second reading, modifications having been inserted by the Labour Bills Committee. The committee reported the bill with amendments after hearing evidence from the Hospital Board and other authorities. It recommended that the duration of the act should be extended to January 1, 1929, and that special provision be made for a landlord to recover possession of hid dwelling house in certain circumstances. Where a landlord has entered into a binding contract for the sale of the freehold of a dwellinghouse he may apply to a stipendiary magistrate for an order for possession, and, if the magistrate is satisfied that the contract effects a real and genuine sale, the landlord may obtain possession at such date as the magistrate may appoint, but within three months of the date of the hearing. In moving the second reading of the bill Sir Francis Bell said the Government contended, and it had been shown before the committee, that in no year could it have been more unsafe to remove the restrictions than in the present year. Never before were the poorer classes in greater danger of further charges on their slender subsistence. No real hardship would be inflicted on landlords by the continuance of what was at present assured to him in rent under law. Sir Francis referred to the evidence of the hospital boards before the committee and to the despair that existed among the poorer classes in time of depression. It was imj>ossible at such times, he said, to regard the question as a commercial one entirely. He repeated that in no year could the restrictions have been discontinued with greater risk to poorer tenants.

Subsequently, replying to discussion in which councillors justified the manner in which they proj>osed to vote, Sir Francis pointed out that the bill still provided that the standard rent of a dwellinghouse should be fixed by reference to its present capital value, instead of its pre-war capital value.

Hon. M. Cohen: That is very satisfac torv.

Sir Francis said he feared there would be a very considerable increase in rents, which was not altogethpr .satisfactory. He would not deny that to a large extent continuance of the Act was illogical, but it was expedient, and there were many cases in which Government or Parliament was bound for the moment to be guided rather by expediency than by strict logic. The bill was read a second time.