RISING RENTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 243, 13 October 1936, Page 9

RISING RENTS.

GRIEVANCE IN N.S.W.

"17/6 RENTAL MYTHICAL" LANDLORDS CRITICISED. (Prom Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, October 6. During the last week of the current month the Industrial Commission will declare the iasic wage for this State to take effect from the beginning of November. Just now there is a great dearth of houses in all the metropolitan suburbs, and the consequent rise in rents has assumed the dimensions of a serious public grievance. When the last declaration of the basic wage was made, the commission announced that it had allowed 17/6 a week for the rent of "a house of three rooms and a kitchen in tenantable condition." in view of the difficulty of finding houses anywhere at a reasonable rent and in decent condition, the newspapers have taken up the question of the rise in rents, and some of them have conducted a series of investigations on their own account, with rather startling results. The comments of the "Labour Daily" are, as usual, subject to heavy discount because of its irrational prejudices against the Stevens Government and its resolute determination to attribute all the woes of the wage-earners to its political opponents, but the evidence it has compiled as to the rise in rents and the impossibility of renting a house worth living in at 17/6 a week is both authentic and unanswerable. It quotes Canon Hammond, our best-known social reformer and philanthropist, to the effect that "the idea of 17/6 houses is pure fiction," and it quotes the Rev. George Cowie. also an experienced social worker, as stating that "it is 'practically impossible for working people to obtain a house in the city worth living

in at less than 25/ a week." He adds that men in his own congregation have told him that they have found it impossible to rent houses close to their employment in the suburbs adjacent to the city for less than 35/ to £2 a week. In view of this testimony, it would seem that the "Labour Daily" is not' very far wrong in its estimate, that for the ordinary working man with the average family the rental required to secure a house adapted to his needs is far nearer 32/6 a week than the preposterous sum of 17/6 allowed for the purpose by the Industrial Commission. Only Old "Shacks" Available. People who are inclined on general grounds to distrust the "Labour Daily" may be invited to consider the facts and figures elicited by the "Daily Telegraph," which lias just conducted an investigation into suburban rentals on similar lines. The "Telegraph" reporters could not find any houses at 17/6 a week "in tenantable condition," though a few old wooden "shacks" of decaying weatherboard could be got at that figure. The cheapest house answering to the Industrial Commission's definition costs at least 20/ per week, but the average house fit for a decent workman's family within five miles of the city costs from 22/6 to 25/ per week. An even more depressing state of things was revealed by inquiries made from 50 tenants in various suburbs regarding the increase in rents. Practically all who answered questions —and they were nearly all women—comlained. bitterly of the rapid rise of rents in recent months. There seems to be no doubt that the lack of houses and the high prices of building material have enabled landlords to exploit their tenants cruelly, and so pronounced has this form of extortion become that even a substantial rise in the basic wage this month would leave the average worker worse off than he was a year ago inregard to the total cost of living. One Paddington housewife told the "Telegraph" interviewer: "Rents have increased by 2/6 to 7/6 a week all over this district, so that any possible increase in the basic wage has already been absorbed." Two important' facts have thus emerged from these inquiries, that the 17/6 rental assumed by the Industrial Commission is simply mythical, and that the tenant just now badly needs the protection of the State against the landlord. :