STATE HOUSES

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 3, 4 July 1938, Page 18

STATE HOUSES

ORAKEI SETTLEMENT

NEW SCHOOL OPENED

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

AUCKLAND, July 3

With a gold key the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage) opened on Saturday a new school at Orakei, where about 160 State houses are now occupied, in the presence of about 3000 cheering spectators. He said the school cost about £13,000, but it was money well spent and he expressed the hope that it would serve the children of the district for many generations to come.

The ceremony was held outdoors and Mr. Savage and his Government associates were given a demonstrative reception. The official party included the Mayor of Auckland, Sir Ernest Davis, the Minister of Internal Affairs Xthe Hon. W. E. Parry), the At-torney-General (the Hon. H. G. R. Mason), the Under-Secretary in Charge of Housing, Mr. J. A. Lee, and other members of Parliament.

Mr. Parry said Jhat the Orakei State settlement and school would stand as a living monument to Mr. Savage as Prime who had thus fulfilled the wish of a lifetime. Mr. Parry said he hoped it would be his own duty to assist in developing the physical and mental constitution of the children at every school through the organsiation which it was proposed to establish in New Zealand. The best legacy the Government could leave was a physically sound generation of children, and there would then be no worry about the.future of the country.

With the opening, of the school on a site unparalleled in New Zealand the Government's housing scheme was well on its way to proving its own success, said Mr. Lee. The Prime Minister's only concern was that ten times as many houses had not been provided. The Minister of Finance said he would find the money, and it was hoped eventually to reproduce Orakei in many places throughout the length and breadth of New Zealand.

A presentation to the school of 15 native trees to represent the Prime Minister, the High Commissioner, and thirteen Cabinet Ministers, was made on behalf of the Tamaki branch of the Labour Party.

On rising to perform the opening of the main door, the Prime 'Minister was greeted with cheers and the singing of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." In his address Mr. Savage emphasised the necessity for the extension of education facilities in New Zealand, and referred to the inability of the Government to find men to do the work requiring attention. He referred to the transformation in.Orakei in the past two years, and said the settlement scheme had been referred to as a wild dream, but it had come true. In his own wildest dreams, he said, he never imagined being there in the heart of an ideal residential suburb opening a magnificent school on one of the finest sites it was possible to find.

"We have a lot to do before we have done justice to the people, but we are well on the way," continued Mr. Savage. "We are £17,000.000 in arrears in New Zealand in the matter of public buildings, and I want to say that it is not the whole of the Government's responsibility. There is a shortage of men to provide the facilities we are prepared to give.

"We want men to come forward and work," he said. "We will supply the. money and ask nobody questions as to where it will come from. We want 330 more houses like those now at Orakei, but no Government can, do it without the assistance of men who do the work."