BIRMINGHAM'S EXAMPLE

Evening Post, Issue 51, 28 August 1935, Page 8

BIRMINGHAM'S EXAMPLE

(To the Editor.) /

Sir, —One reads every night ""in "The Post" of the shortage of houses and the reasons thereof. Investors complain that they have no. security" for their money/owners complain that they do not make anything out of letting houses, and some of the people who live in a house and pay rent complain that they are rack-rented for dilapidated places which ought to,be condemned. Now, most of these people, although they exaggerate a little^ are quite right from, their own point of view, but unfortunately none of them puts forward a scheme that is workable.

One night ( last week a friend of mine gave me a copy of "The Times" Supplement on the City of Birmingham Town Hall Centenary. In reading the history of the city since 1834, one realised to /what extent men elected to a local body can benefit their fellow-citizens. I think it is the finest record of progress ever made by any city in history. I would like to draw the attention of our City Council to Birmingham's latest venture. The present British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, when Lord Mayor of Birmingham in 1916 found that to obtain finance for the city's needs cost too much money, so he sponsored a Bill in Parliament to start a municipal bank. The Government of the day agreed, but laid it down that the bank must cease operations six months after the war ended. However, at the termination of the war the bank was doing such fine things for the city that it was allowed to remain. Today it is the ; largest financial institution in Birmingham. It handles the -whole of the city's trading concerns, including gas, water, trams, lighting, markets, etc. The people themselves can make use of the banking system in several ways. Loans can be obtained for building a house or for furnishing it at a lower rate than from any other financial institution, and the latest I have heard from this progressive city is that it has started the greatest slum clearance of any city in Great The curious thing about the whole history of this financial enterprise is, that it did hot cost the ratepayers one penny. My reasons for pointing out the advantages of a scheme such as this must be ovious. A municipal baiik in Wellington could handle the' accounts of municipal trading concerns All rates would be paid into it, and in fact the whole of the money at present paid to the City Council would go into its own bank. Should the council decide to carry out a municipal housing scheme on lines as ambitious as some of our councillors want, finance from a city bank would be forthcoming without any bother about brokerage fees and a few other items which go to make all loans for houses prohibitive ;to the average workinp man.—l, am, etc., . ■

W.H. DOUGLAS.