The Press SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 1945 Housing

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24582, 2 June 1945, Page 6

The Press SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 1945 Housing

Thursday’s public meeting called by his Worship the Mayor together With the Returned Services’ Association to consider what can be donfe to relieve the housing shortage in Christchurch, may not at first glance appear to have achieved very much. Two committees were appointed; one to take up with the Government the question whether more labour and more materials can be allocated to housing, the other to investigate possibilities of providing immediate relief. But if this does not look like a great achievement, it dbes ndt fall fat short of the greatest that could bfe expected. The investigations that are to be pursued are important and many-sided—how important, the discussion reported v yesterday helped to show; and if they arfe pursued with single-minded determination, the short-rtih and longrun results can be large. Thosfe respects in which what waS done fell short of reasonably high expectations, however, should be defined. . First, the meeting failed to recognise fully that accurate information, as complete as possible, is essential, if the resources Of the community are to be efficiently organised—organised, that is, iifat merely to get something done but to get the utmost done in extent and advantage. A few examples will suffice. A proposal to use the servicemen’s ihformation bureau as a centre to Collect data from persons in urgent need of housing was adopted, but without clear general support. Presumably the sefcond Of the twb committees mentioned above will supervise this centre and look to it for information; presumably the Mayor, who is to appeal to owriers Of large hduseS with rooms to spare, Will also look to it for information as Well as to the list of applicants who are to register separately with him. No doubt these - arrangements can be co-ordinated better irl practice than they are in plan. But arrangements of that sort are too haphazard and sketchy. If adequate and reliable information is wanted—and .nobody m his sehseS Will think otherwise—then the Christchurch City Council, with ot Without the help of neighbouring local authorities, Should establish and staff a temporary official bUrOaU to collect it. To take another example, the. Housing Department, the Building Controller, the Supply Deportment, and the Department, of National Service were not represented (it seems) at Thursday’s meeting. Perhaps they could not be. If not, it is regrettable; but if they could have been and were not, because they were not invited, it is the more regrettable. . These ( are the agencies that know, most find have most power. To try to thrive independently, without their information and without their support, is a mistake. The representations to be made by the first committee , mentioned above will, of course, reach the Supply Department and the manpower authorities and the Building Controller; but that is not really enough. An attempt to do enough’ would have been expressed in a resolution instructing Both committees—or calling on the City Council—to ask the Government to permit representatives of the appropriate State agencies to associate co-operatively with them. The Government might not agree; but the Government would be as badly in the wrong, if it did not agree, as local organisations are, if they do not ask. The secretary of the Carpenters’ Union said at the meeting that the trade unions regard the problem as a national one. So it is; but the national problem is an aggregate or complex of local ones. The co-ordination of national ahd local policy iS imperative. Cb-ofd-ination without liaison is meaningless; and liaison requires, first and last, the pooling of information. A second respect in which Thursday’s meeting failed, in method rather than in aim, was to constitute the labour and materials committee chiefly from members of the building trade. There is an obvious reason for doing so. Members of the building trade are most intimately acquainted With the facts, at least with those of the filets that appear in labour arid material shortages, and with the system of controls designed to regulate ■ building accordingly. The committee would be handicapped, if not helpless, without the help of such men. But it is undesirable that representation, such as this committee ought to make should appear to come from the building trade ahd to reflect its interests. It is undesirable, because the problem to be solved is not the problem of the trade but the problem of the community; because the interests involved are not industrial but social. The Government Should not be given the chance to assume, _pr to pretend, that it is dealing with a section. It should be obliged to acknowledge that it is dealing with those who speak for all sections and have no interest but the common interest. And for that reason ( the representative basis of this committee, with due allowance for technical and industrial representation, should be the broadest possible. It remains to be repeated that, in spite of these considerations, Thursday’s meeting did well, paving th 6 way for what may be and should be genuine advance. The mistake of taking too narrow and too short a view, moreover, can be corrected. The need to correct it was emphasised by the discussion, which again and again turned to large issues. For instance, ohe speaker reviewed evidence which has led the North Canterbury Timber Merchants’ Association - to the opinion that the South Island is not being allocated a fair share of the timber available. Another raised the question whether housing construction is being organised .with the same firmness as was defence construction; and, need being balanced against need, means against

mm% it ijuesttefc .A* suggested m timet, when,M saifi; thAt <Ht}tisitlg had “aft S4 s6r ,“ priority “r but, even if twsfttekmi that, of materials and labtrtte that* could be used for housing, Si ptir ceht. actually goes to hdiftin& it JS not a final answer. The story of Britain’s industrial Wat effort shows, for example, that a system of priorities is only the gf of maximum production of desired kind. Priority mdk(*/ft possible; it is achieved orderly allocation and delivery of materials, concentration or grouping of production units, and so on. tn that sense it has still to be discovered whether New Zealand has reached full efficiency. Finally, some reference Was made to the effect of sales tax on housing. It is sufficient to say that, When housing is a major object of national policy and housing costs ate alarmingly high, it is fiscal lunacy to raise costs and rents with taxes. Neither of the appointed committees finds this—or certain other significant questions—within the scdpe assigned to it; but local inquiry and representations should not be limited to local issUes, The essence of the matter is thatj local energy should find its proper place in the national attack on the problem as a whole, and it can do so only if it sees the problem whole.