HOUSING PROBLEMS.

Gisborne Times, Volume LVI, Issue 6318, 22 February 1922, Page 6

HOUSING PROBLEMS.

MINISTER TWITS LABORITES

Discussing the housing problem in the House a few days before the close of the session, the Hon. Mr Aiiderson (Minister for Labor) asked Labor interjectors how many men in the last- five years could not have- put down a £lO note in order to have a house built under the housing scheme? How many men in this country, if .they had denied themselves a little, could not. have got 75 per cent, of the value of a cottage? Very few indeed. One of the first houses I bought I had to struggle very- hard indeed to put. down tho first payment, and I do not think I was getting half the wages that have been going for men in my- trade during the last few years. Mr Holland: But your wages had double the purchasing-power. Mr Anderson: I will not admit that. "When people built houses in these days—people m my position, and thousands of others were in the same position—they denied themselves pleasures they might have enjoyed. We had in those days, as we have to-day, men who would not denythemselves to got their houses. Mr Fraser: Do not men deny themselves now? Mr Anderson: I do not mean to, say anything of the sort, but a great many of them do not deny- themselves, and therefore during the last five years or so they have not had houses when they otherwise might have had them.' An Hon. Member: Oh, buncombe! Mr Anderson: It may- bo all buncome according tc the honorable member’s idea. But I assert that a great many of the honorable gentlemen in this House had to deny themselves in their young days.