PROVISION OF HOUSES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18711, 17 May 1924, Page 9

PROVISION OF HOUSES.

NEW BRITISH SCHEME.

GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES. Reuter. LONDON. May IS An important item in the Government's housing policy is contained in a circular issued by the Ministry for Health to the local authorities. This states that an agreement was reached .at the recent housing conference providing for a subsidy of £13 10s annually for each house for a period of 40 years. • The Government is to provide twothirds and the local authorities the remaining one-third. It is also stipulated that the rentals shall be equal to the pre-war levels.

" We are on the eve of a tremendous proposal by the Government," declared Mr. Coppock, general secretary of the National Federation of Building Trades Operatives, in speaking of the Government's housing proposals at a conference on housing held in London on April 5. The Government, said Mr. Coppock, had devised ways and means to deal with the housing problem. If contented workers were required they would have to be well housed and fed and given an interest in industry. Men could not be manufactured by mass production like Ford cars. Despite what had been said about the Addison house, it was the best that was ever built for the working-classes in this country. But, he said, the ones we are going to build will be better. The programme we have set out, added Mr. Coppock, is 2,500,000 houses in a period of 15 years, which is 503,000 less than we anticipate being able to do. The people tackling it are going the right way about it. Industry is prepared to use every effort to do this work. It is possible we are on the eve of one -of the greatest revolutions in Great Britain.