HOMES FOR WORKERS

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 49, 27 August 1934, Page 10

HOMES FOR WORKERS

(To the Editor.)

i ,cjj r> —i n your issue of the 25th hist., Mr. Charles Williams, dealing with the 'housing scheme brought forward by tho Wellington Trades and Labour Council, and commenting on the fact that the ''Evening Post" had given some credit to the- council and myself as'president, states: "Any credit due to the council arising out of this or any other building scheme . . . is entirely due to the ex-president, M-r. John Tucker." ' It would appear from this statement that no matter what my council had proposed in the building line, Mr. Tucker should have- received the credit for it, which is. simply too absurd to call for comment —unless he has become omnipotent. I cannot imagine Mr. Tucker putting forward any such claim, and feel Mr. Williams has allowed his zeal for his friend to outrun his discretion. According to Mr. Williams himself, the proposals put forward by Mr. Tucker are as follows:—

1. To approach the Government to organise unemployed tradesmen. 2. Government supplying matemls at lowest cost. .

3. Using public land for - building garden cities. 4. Using scrip money, free of interest, with Unemployment Fund-as-basis. Now, Sir, as to Nos. 1, 2; and. 4 of those suggestions, there is nothing at all in tho proposals in tho report,' and only a, remote resemblance to No. 3, as instead of a generalisation such as the above we proposed that .a definite pieeo of city land should be used. Mr. Williams also states ' that the .Unemployment Board forestalled the council by offering 12 per cent, subsidy on tho scheme, which is obviously incorrect, as we should not have suggested a 10 per cent, subsidy in the scheme had we known 12 per cent, was obtainable. Anyhow, the report was before- the] Trades C.ouucil several days before it was published'in "The Post," and had been adopted. The final portion of Mr. . Williams's '"ttcr is something of an anti-climax. Ho'argues that Mr. Tucker is entitled to credit for the scheme in the first nart of his letter, as I have shown, and then denies that any scheme has been i nut forward. He states "there is no plan before the public unon which it ran think and decide." If that is so, Sir, why is Mr. Williams so worriod about anybody gotting credit—for nothing? I must confess that if we accept this gentleman's statement, then my council and myself, a prominent M.P. and councillor to whom the scheme was submitted, tho Mayor, and also tho "Evening Post" must have been suf-Pni-ino; from a hallucination, as all were under tho impression that there- was something to think about in the scheme. Mr. Tucker should pray to bo delivered from such friends as this;—l am, etc.,

.T. BEAD, President., Wellington Trades and Labour Council.