COST OF HOUSING

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 156, 20 March 1923, Page 8

COST OF HOUSING

A STATEMENT DENIED During the last general election a great deal of capital was made out of the alleged pronouncement of the Arbitration Court that 15s. 3d. was the amount allowed for house rent in AA r ellington. At the Arbitration Court yesterday, Mr. A. L. Monteith. M.P., referred to the high rents prevailing in Wellington. He remarked that the Court had assessed the average rent at 15s. 3d., and His Honour had not trorbled to explain tho grounds upon which it had done so. His Honour replied that there was nothing to explain for the simple reason that tho Court had done nothing of t>he sort. In 19'11 the Government statistician had gathered a budget of several hundreds of family expenditure returns. From there he had made calculations showing that the amount Spent on rent was 20 per cent-., on food 34 per cent., and on clothing and ether articles 46 m?r cent. That had been the basis upwi which the Government statistician had built up his estimate of the cost of living varying the percentage from time to time. For instance. it was obvious that at present the food group and other articles upon which the cost of living was based did not bear the same relation to rent as they used to—rent, might now be 25 to 30 per cent, of the total or even more, tho other groups being reduced accordingly. As a m-.tt-r of fact, if rents had not increased largely the last bonus would have been ss. instead of 3s. Mr. Monteith said that that did not alter the position. Housing should bo put down at. 255. a week at least. His Honour again explained the position, but Mr. Monteith declared that he could not grasp tho explanation.