BIG INCREASE IN RENT

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22201, 18 September 1937, Page 16

BIG INCREASE IN RENT

RICCARTON CASE QUOTED BY MR KYLE ALLEGED DISAPPEARANCE OF LETTER CFrom Our Parliamentary Reporter.J WELLINGTON, September 17. A case in which he alleged that a woman in his electorate had had her rent raised by 50 per cent., in spite of the operation of the Fair Rents Act, was referred to by Mr H. S. S. Kyle (National, Riccarton) during the Ad-dress-in-Reply debate in the House of Representatives to-day. "We have been told that the Government passed the bill to prevent the raising of rent without the consent of a Magistrate," Mr Kyle said, "yet I was recently approached by a woman in Riccarton who had been told that her rent was going to be put up from ]ss to 22s fid and she would have to pay the increase or be hailed before a Magistrate to show why she should not. That is the way the Labour Party has kept down rents. "If I as Mayor of Riccarton, tned to raise the rent of a house I own there by 50 per cent., I would be hounded out of the village, and would expect to lose my seat in Parliament —and plenty of Government members will lose their seats at the next election." ~, _, ~ The Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. M J Savage): Did you take the matter to the Minister? "I took it to the Christehurch office of the State Advances Corporation," Mr Kyle replied. "I left a letter from the woman, in which the facts were set out and when I later asked the manager for it to be returned he said it was not there. It would have been more than his job was worth to have given it to me." Mr F W. Schramm (Government, Auckland East): What was the value of the property? Mr Kyle: I have not got the details. "The Government passed an act to prevent profiteering," he concluded, "but if raising rent by 50 per cent. is not profiteering, I should like to know what is."