Evening Post SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1942. HOUSING AND PLANNING

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 64, 12 September 1942, Page 6

Evening Post SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1942. HOUSING AND PLANNING

The wisdom of planning well ahead to meet conditions that will arise after the war is obvious, and from this point of view the statement of the Minister of Housing (Mr. Armstrong), published yesterday, .is welcome. The programme outlined by the Minister provides for ' the construction of 8000 houses in the first year after the war and 10.000 in each of the two subsequent years, plus 4000 houses which, it is expected, will be built privately. Even this programme, the Minister estimates, will not meet all requirements. It is, of course, difficult to arrive with exactitude at the number of houses actually needed. To base the requirements on the number of applications for State houses is misleading. There are many people who, although living under reasonable conditions in privately-owned dwellings, are anxious to transfer to State houses because they are new and because the rental is lower than they are paying. Private builders of houses naturally cannot compete in the rents they charge with a State Housing Department which operates on what amounts to practically costless credit. The Department secures its money from the Reserve Bank at an interest rate of 1 per cent, on the first £5,000,000 and 1^ per cent, on anything over that figure. At the sa,me time, it must be admitted that the demand for houses, State anil private, will be considerable after the war* and the State has a duty to assist in meeting it. This duty, however, must include measures which will encourage private house building. Though the Minister includes such building in his estimate, he does not indicate how private enterprise is to be given the confidence necessary to its participation.

House-building plans are important, not only for the provision of accommodation but as a part of the post-war employment programme. The building industry can be expanded quickly to absoi-b labour, and it will undoubtedly contribute substantially to the solution of rehabilitation problems. The Minister envisages the employment of 8000 to 9000 men for the duration of the war, 21,000 in the first post-war year, and 24,000 in each of the two subsequent years. These figures, which do not include the greater numbers required for ancillary industries providing materials, shoAV clearly the fillip that the housing programme will give to employment generally. Many of the men available will be unskilled, but special steps are being taken to provide the necessary training. I Inherent in the Minister's plan are economic considerations which cannot be overlooked. If all the necessary labour and materials are available in New Zealand, there will be a marked increase in the volume of spending power. What avenues will there be for the disbursement of that spending power? Will there be a repetition of the 1935-38 experience of internal inflation, that led to ;the sterling and import restrictions? Such internal boosting of spending power must place undue cost burdens on the primary export industries and tend to throw our national economy out of balance. Planning ahead for the provision of houses is wise, but it must be accompanied by similar planning in other directions, and particularly by careful calculation of the effect upon our basic industries. In the new economic order that will arise when the war is won, - New Zealand must be prepared to play its part, a part dictated not by its own particular needs alone but by the needs of the world as a whole. The problem of rehabilitation is not merely one of getting men profitably back into civil life, vitally important as that is, but of fitting into the general world plan of reconstruction. That fact should not be overlooked when proposals to meet future needs are under consideration.