THE LESSON OF 1926.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 4 May 1927, Page 5

THE LESSON OF 1926.

‘TALKING TILINGS OUT.”

MR. THOMAS AND THE BETTER WAY.

The Right Hon. J. H. Thomas, M.P., spoke in Ills capacity of chairman of directors fo the Co-operative Building Society at tlie annual meeting of the society in London. In dealing with the housing problem, he said he was very much afraid that, owing to the natural anxiety of ali governments to justify themselves, there was cultivated an impression that the housing problem was “sort of solved.”

That was not only true, but the working classes were still paying more heavily from time to time in many ways for the great housing shortage. The best authorities agreed that at the end of 1918 there was a clear, definite shortage of a million houses in this country. The best experts estimated that to meet the ordinary requirements there should be built 100,000 houses annually. The latest Government figures showed that since the Armistice to November last there had been only 786,000 houses built. >So that not only had they not recovered anything of the million wartime shortage, but they had not built the number required for normal conditions.

“I hope vve shall never again experience a. year similar to 1926,” said Mr. Thomas. “I am one of those who believe that another shock of that kind would very nearly end this country. I am not without hope that tlie lesson and experience of that year will be learned by everyone, because one thing it has demonstrated above all else is that whatever may be the merits of these industrial conflicts, whoever was to blame, there can be no doubt that in the end the great mass of the people suffer. There can be no doubt, if we could find the means of talking tilings out instead of fighting them out, the community as a whole would benefit.”