HOUSING HOLD-UP

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 54, 1 September 1945, Page 8

HOUSING HOLD-UP

MR. SEMPLE STATES THE

CAUSES

In dealing with questions concerning the speeding up of construction of State houses, there were one or two fundamental factors which could not be too strongly emphasised, said the Minister of Works (Mr. Semple) last night. Foremost was the question of reserves. It was that vital question which was at present handicapping the housing construction programme. "We have no reserve of man-power and we have no reserve of materials," said Mr. Semple. "The shelves and yards of the merchants are empty. We are working on a hand-to-mouth basis. For the efficient functioning of any undertaking it is essential that it should have a reserve supply of whatever commodity is necessary to the functioning of that undertaking. An army cannot function without its reserves, a gas company's service to its consumers will fail for lack of reserves of coal — a railway service will break down for the same reason. Illustrations could be quoted ad infinitum. "Why are we short of materials? A little consideration of the matter and the obvious answer presents itself. The enormous defence construction programme has used up all the stock we had and the producers of these critical materials are so denuded of man-power that they are unable in a short space of time to replace the stocks. We have had suggestions from all sides as to how this housing shortage may be overcome, suggestions for new forms of construction, replacing timber with concrete, concrete blocks, prefabricated timber, prefabricated concrete. Many of the suggestions have had merit in them, but all of them disregard the root cause of the trouble, and that is the fact that we have no reserves of any of the materials employed in any form of construction. We endeavoured to conserve timber by building in concrete. We immediately ran up against the difficulty of shortage of supplies of cement. That shortage is caused (a) through lack of coal, and (b) through lack of man-power. If the shortage of cement could be overcome we could increase construction in concrete, but it does not appear likely that that shortage will be overcome for some considerable time yet. "Recently we were forced to import some 3000 tons of cement from Australia. This was done to give us a small reserve in the North Island, but 3000 tons is only one week's supply for the North Island. MUST KEEP A BALANCE. "It might be asked, Why have men not been withdrawn from the Services and directed into the bush to increase the supply of timber? This could have been done, at the expense of the war effort, but if you secure more timber then you need more concrete, more baths, more ranges, and more of everything that goes to the making up of a house. It is useless having an ample stock of one material and a shortage in all of the others. It is necessary to keep a balance and if we had drawn men out of the Services to get more timber out of the bush, it follows that vye would have had to withdraw additional men to build up the man-power in all of the ancillary building trades. This, of course, was quite impossible. "The plain fact is that there is no simple remedy for our present position. The root cause of the trouble is lack of man-power. With the cessation of hostilities this position will be remedied,, but it will be some months before the men get back into employment and the various industries producing those materials required for housing construction are able to build up their production. This, then, is our most pressing task, to get the men back into the bush and into industry just as quickly as this may be done. No committees, no conferences, no Royal Commissions can contribute any real- assistance unless the real difficulty is eliminated."