STATE HOUSING POLICY

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 308, 23 September 1943, Page 8

STATE HOUSING POLICY

Labour’s Case Stated

MR. SEMPLE’S ADDRESS

Describing the Labour Party’s housing policy as one of lease in perpetuity, Air. 11. Semple, ALP., Wellington East, addressed electors at the Capitol Theatre. Miramar, last night. He analysed and condemned the housing policy which was being advanced 'by the National Party. He said that if the title deeds of a private home were in someone else’s strongroom, then he bad the freehold and the house occupier the mortgage-hold. _ As long -as Labour was in power the. 'State houses were not going to be available for speculators to gamble with. Let those who wanted the freehold go to Air. S. G. Holland for it. He would like to have a look at them when they had acquired the freehold.

The average State rental house, sajd Mr. Semple, cost £1350, including £l5O for the land. The average rental was 2'5/- weekly, making an annual rental of £65. This consisted of £25 for rates, insurance and repairs. £2O for interest at 11 per cent, on £1350 and £2O for depreciation at 1 2-3 per cent, on £l’2oo. The interest rate, 11 ipcr cent, on the total cost of the property, was that charged to the State only by the Reserve Bank. Through no other source could such a low rate of interest 'be obtained. Depreciation was based on accumulating a sum sufficient to re-erect the dwellings at the original cost in sixty years from the date of occupation. iNow, if they were to fall for the statements of the National Party, the only item out of the week’s rent which could ibe applied toward the purchase of the house would be depreciation, and by paying an amount equivalent to depreciation for the purchase of the house they would Ibe able to say at the end of sixty years, “One more instalment and the house is mine.” After that they would have to start paying for the section which at the same rate would take another 74 years. Thus, a young couple going into a new State, 'house at the age of 25 would 1 , if the Nationalist Party could adhere to the rate of 1J per cent, interest and 1 2-3 per cent, depreciation or instalment of principal, become the owners of the house and section when they had reached the age of 92J years. If they went into the property at 30 years of age they would be 9 i i, or at 40 years of age thej T would be 102 J. In between times all the worries of accumulating funds to pay the rates, to pay the insurance, to meet the cost of painting and repairs and to pay interest and instalments of principal at regular intervals would be theirs instead of the State’s. And at the end of 60 years the house would have a depreciated value of exactly nothing. It would ibe ready for the scrap heap. “I am an implacable foe of war. I know that fundamentally and ethically it is wrong,” said Mr. Semple, “but first of all we have to live by the la,w of selfpreservation. AVe have to fight or perish.” A Permanent Peace.

When the war was won. said Mr. Semple, there must be no patched-up peace. It must be a lasting peace, not a repetition of what happened after the last war. The gangsters and invaders who had caused this world-wide tragedy must be crushed for all time so that they will never raise their monstrous heads again and hath the world in blood instead of glory. There was only one way to do this in his opinion, and that was for the Allied powers to form an alliance -—a close alliance —that would mean a lasting friendship. Some form of international council of those nations had to be set up. Their main functions would be to police the world and to put. into effect tht principles of the Atlantic Charter, which meant that every nation should have its rightful place in the great international scheme of things. They should be allowed to live and let live, to expand and trade. The armament firms should be nationalized, thereby bringing them under strict international control and destroying the incentive to make profits out of the implements of destruction. Each nation that composed the Allied Powers should have a voice in shaping the destiny of each nation in the days, that were ahead. That alliance, said Air. Semple, should be composed of the British Commonwealth of Nations. America, Russia and China. This would be the mightiest force on earth, and if their powers are used for peace then humanity would be protected against war with all its cruel and destructive and brutal agencies for-generations and perhaps centuries to come. Rehabilitation. New Zealand was the only country in the world which had yet faced up to reHhTnlitation, and the only one which had a Rehabilitation Act on its Statute Book, said Mr. Semlile, who added that New Zealand was the inventor of the social security policy. To date 24,205 New Zealand men had been demobilized from military service, including 10,168 from overseas. The scale of pensions granted them for disability was the highest in the world, and if any case of neglect could be substantiated, the speaker would undertake to fix it up in 24 hours. Some 13,20 S men had re-estab-lished themselves without any help, and only 187 were enrolled for placement. The Government, had put 100 men on farms at a cost of £278.035, 33 in houses at a cost of £39,625, some 269 had been put in business at a cost of £259.455, some 55 had been bought tools »f trade at a cost of £l3-17. some 823 furniture at a cost of £70,994. and Avith other amounts, the expenditure had totalled £673.752. Labour had been accused of swinging off national work too early for the war effort, but events bad vindicated the soundness of the judgment. Now that the Americans, were here the Government was told it was doing too much. It was their hounden duty to get the Americans here when the situation was desperate, and the country was under an obligation to maintain them. Mr. Doidge had said New Zealand did too much for the Americans. But for “Rob Semple's highways” where would the country have been? He had been called “Public Enemy No. 1,” but Jiobody said anything today about the Ngahauranga Gorge and Paekakafiki, roads. There was no manpower muddle in this country. New Zealand had done more with its limited manpower in 18 months than any other country in the world. At the conclusion of Air. Semple’s address the meeting adopted, a resolution of confidence in the candidate, and, the Government, there being one dissentient.