THE HOUSING DEBATE

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 130, 3 June 1936, Page 8

THE HOUSING DEBATE

; (To the Editor.) Sir,—l have spent a lot of time listening to "sob stuff" about housing for the people of this country. It i seems as if the general run of the speakers concern themselves with, i sentiment purely, and precious little about the financial side of the ques- * tion. It is desirable that necessitous , people should have decent housing, J but what is the cost going to be to the Government and to the purchaser? . There is no gainsaying the fact that P the cost of housing since the war is utterly absurd from an economic standpoint. With all due respect to the i efforts of Governments, money for , houses has been made too easy. The ; rate of interest is only a secondary 1 consideration. The capital cost has f reached a terrible height for the 2 security offered. Workers with, say, 2 85s to 90s per week as wages or salary have to try and pay for a house costing anything from £1250 to £1450, and these figures show the utter absurdity * of the present housing ideas. In pre- ] ' war times a much better house could 5 be had for about £500. Unless the e interest and amortisation of capital 1 can be approximated as nearly as 0 possible to a day's pay, then trouble 1 can be expected always when hard v - times come along. Therefore, it seems Y to me that not sufficient thought is r given to the capital cost of the buildn ing. High rents, high rates; and high 11 ideas are the curse of this country so d f ar as the worker Is concerned, and > the writer cannot see that the average .t worker is any better off than in the > days gone by when he had to fish a n bit more for himself. —I am, etc., g INDEPENDENCE, ir —