STATE HOUSING

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 68, 17 September 1937, Page 10

STATE HOUSING

WIDER SCHEME

NEEDED

ENTERPRISE CHECKED

No one would deny that there was urgent need for. homes for many people when the Government came into office, the Hon. Vincent Ward said when speaking in the Legislative Council, but the Government's attempt to meet that need had checked private enterprise. He suggested that the Government should widen its policy so that workers could build and own their | own homes as in the past. From a national point of view the Government was right in attempting to provide homes for the people, Mr. Ward said, but he considered the State should have confined itself to the building of small homes for those who wanted only two or three rooms. Having done that, the Government should have advanced loans through the State Advances Department. When the Government commenced its housing scheme the popular belief was that rents would be from 12s to 15s, but the rents to be charged for the homes built were from 25s to 27s 6d. Those rents might be reasonable at the present time, but what of the future? If prosperity declined the homes would be too costly, and the Government would have been wiser to have aimed at something that would have had a constant value whether times were good or bad. The Government had set a cost that was suitable for times of prosperity only. A NATIONAL EFFORT. The building of homes should be a national effort,' Mr. Wrrd added, but it should be an effort with the Government leading the way. The Government's scheme had checked private enterprise in building; what was wanted was a scheme with private enterprise stepping out along with the Government. The private investor had been stopped from building by rent restrictions and the limits placed on State advances. If money had been advanced for homes through the State Advances Department as in the past many workers would have built their own homes, and, having built them, would have become ratepayers and better citizens because of an interest in the country. i 1 Mr. Ward said that he had inspected ' the State houses built, and had nothing ] but praise for them, but at the same i time he considered the Government's : action had been an unnecessary enter- < ing into private enterprise. State hous- ( ing sounded all right, but in practice l it brought about all sorts of trouble j and killed the incentive of private people to build. i