WORKERS' HOMES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 261, 3 November 1928, Page 13

WORKERS' HOMES.

MR. PARRY'S ADVOCACY.

ENTHUSIASTIC MEETING.

Ontside of party leaders it is rarely * that political candidates are cheered enthusiastically, but this was the compliment paid Mr. W. E. Parry, Labour candidate for Auckland Central, when he addressed an audience of 200 in St. Benedict's Hall last evening. The candidate traversed practically the same grounds as he did in his opening address the previous evening. Mr. C. S. Morris presided. Mentioning his advocacy of better housing conditions, Mr. Parry said he had pointed out to the Government that there were people who were not availing themselves of the opportunities offered by the State Advances Office, for the reason that they were unable to pay the interest charges on tfae large amount required to build homes. He urged that .the interest on money now being received by the Department at tha rate of a little over a million a year should be earmarked for the purpose of building homes for people who were intermittently employed, and that the Government should cut up their own land hi the cities and let people have an interminable lease of their sections at the rate of £10 or £11 a year. That, he declared, would give the worker a better chance to pay off interest incurred in building a home. With falling wages in the offuiig, Mr. Parry believed that the demand would be made of the Government by the workers of Kew Zealand to write down the cost of their loans, the name as a demand made by soldier settlers that the cost of their land should be written down. Mr. Parry said that productivity was not being extended proportionate with borrowing in New Zealand and the country was groaning under a heavy burden of taxation. When he was dealing with the "dismal failure" of the Government to grapple with the >land problem, a lady said that New Zealand ■chool and college boya would go on the land if they could get it cheaply. Mr. Pnrry Very true, too, thev <ain Ret decent conditions. The youth of this country are compelled to follow blind alley occupations because there is no provision made for We ask the Government to be good enough to make provision for them to fco en the land is their own edmvej-t