THE HOUSING PROBLEM

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXXI, Issue LXXXI, 14 May 1920, Page 4

THE HOUSING PROBLEM

BRITAIN'S DIFFICULTIES

In a letter to the London Times, Mr F. 0. vvaaej Agent-tieneral tor JtJntieh Columbia, writes:

"The problem or supplying Great Britain, with houses, to say nothing or rebuilding Europe, can only be met in one way— 'by mass construction. Henry ■Ford, according to recent dispatches, is opening up factories in Copenhagen, and we siiali soon have under our nohts an illustrat.on of what mass construction means. Mass construction w;is the secret of Henry Ford's success in producing a motor car a minute. The superiority of machine over man m every form of structural endeavor is no longer questioned. .Buiit-to-order units, even to the smallest detail, have long been recognised as the only successful method of constructing, steel buildings. The same principle has been adopted in the construction of wooden houses, and if Europe is to be rebuilt it can only be by the use of material which lends itself so readily to the built-to-order process. If mass construction can be used so successfully in structures of iron and steel, how much more easily can. it be adopted in producing thousands of houses in a minimum or time!

' 'Let me indicate how mass construction, works- out in practice. To 'begin witn, artistic designs are made and carefully worked out by architect and builder. The plans are bo drawn ac to combine beauty with utility. The same plans can. be used many times over in multiplying houses for different districts, and ihey are so numerous that they need not be duplicated in a: single district. ' "The immense amount* of necessary cutting and sawing in ordinary work, in saved. A waste of 18 per cent. on. lumber cut on the hand-saw plan is avoided. The buildings are cut to fit, so that the purchaser^dare not lose an inch in waste material. Nor is there any difficulty iru proving that ample material can be obtained for the task in hand. If I may speak of that part of Canada with which i am most nearly associated, I may say that British 'Columbia possesses 650,000,000 acres of virgin forest, and a stand of saw lumber of over 400,000,000,000 ft. board measure. In strength values for structural timber, fibre etress, modulus of rupture, stiffness, and elasticity, as against southern pines, British Columbia fir takes first place with many points to spare." When the Housing Bill was before the House of Commons, Sir J. Tudor "Walters, who replied for the Government, gave aVay the whole case for the original Act (says the Times). Heis the new broom whom the Prime Minister has appointed to clear up the .housing muddle. He- gave, it as his opinion that they could get their 100,000 houses built by men who were not contracting for local authorities, and at least 70 or 80 per cent, of the men they employed would 'be a new contribution to the housing construction of the country.. As for tha- local authorities' housing, schemes, he believed there was never so much profiteering in the building trade as was going on under them. Three classes of people were profiteering—the people who supplied the materials, the contractor who was- carrying, out the work, and the workmen, who were laying the bricks. He affirmed his belief that any contractor, who wanted to could build these houses for at least £300 less than they were doing to-day. After this candid, confession—and «everal appeals to the Government to encourage ,the building, o£ wooden houses on the Canadian model—the House had no alternative but. to voto the second reading without a division.