HOMES BY BALLOT.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20788, 23 February 1933, Page 4

HOMES BY BALLOT.

PLAN TO ABSORB THE UNEMPLOYED. A scheme which is 'claimed by its sponsor, Mr A. H. Vile, to provide a means of absorbing the unemployed, stimulating a key industry of the Dominion, and reviving trade generally, has been submitted to the Government and the leading chambers of commerce. In brief, the proposal is that the existing art unions be abolished, and that in their stead there be instituted, terminating building societies. These would have a membership of 8000 each, at 2s 6d a member. When the society was filled a draw, would be made, and the holder of the successful marble would have a house erected, free of cost, to a value (witu land), of £9OO. It is claimed for the scheme that it would employ numbers of the unemployed at standard wages, and thereby stimulate all branches of industry. The money raised would be expended entirely in the city or town in which it was subscribed. Thero would, it is contended, be no danger of over-build-ing. for, by employing labour at standard wages, that are at present tenantlcss would bs occupied.

If there are inhabitants on Venus Professor Philip Fox. of tlie Alder Planetarium, says that they are "tough customers." '""Talk about life on Venus is pare speculation," he said recently. "But from what we know of its climate, its inhabitants, if any, are indeed tough." A day on Venus is 20 earth days long- The night is the same. Getting accustomed to a warm day, and then being subjected to chilly 20-day night, the professor remarks, would make the supposed dwellers of the planet hardy enough for almost anything. Speculation about the possibility of inhabitants on Venus was recently begun anew when astronomers discovered that there is present on Venus large quantities of carbon dioxide, indicative of existence "in some form.