STATE HOUSES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 197, 22 July 1941, Page 4

STATE HOUSES.

Not the least interesting sectiou of the Budget was that in which the Acting-Prime Minister dealt with the Government’s experience in the provision of State houses. After announcing that during the year 13990 new units had been completed, bringing the total number under the control of the State Advances Corporation to 10,425, Mr Nash stated that provision had been made in the current year’s Estimates for the expenditure of .£4,400,000 “in an effort to provide additional houses which are so urgently required.” It will not be questioned that the provision of houses is a laudable mo-

tive, and read in conjunction with the remarks of the Minister in Charge of Housing, last week, the Acting-Premier’s promise arouses special interest. In averring that neither apology nor explanation is necessary for tin l fact that four members of Parliament are occupying State bouses, Mr Armstrong explained that these are the dearer type of dwelling “that are sometimes difficult to let at all ’' Here is an astonishing paradox: The original purpose of the housing scheme was to provide homes well within the capacity to pay of the lower-wage group. In the early stages 5000 houses were envisaged at an average cost of £6OO, and tlie\cheapest house was to be let at about 13s 6d per week, though bv the middle of 1937 it was realised that the aver-; age rental for a four-roomed house without a sunporch would he 25s a week. The extent to which costs have since risen suggests that the average rental will have further advanced. It is. obvious that men in ihe lowerwage group, with families, must be Tlebarred from sharing the accommodation it was originally intended they should possess nnd j that a striking anomaly exists