THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1924. CHEAPER HOUSES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18897, 20 December 1924, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1924. CHEAPER HOUSES.

There arc signs of a new approach to the housing problem in Britain, an approach that has suggestive value for other countries suffering from a similar need. The precise form that approach will take is not yet manifest but it is sufficiently indicated by Mr. Neville Chamberlain's speech on the amendment moved by his Labour predecessor in the Ministry for Health. The problem's solution necessitates finding money, materials, methods and men. The policy of the present Government gives prominence to the necessity for materials, and seeks what Mr, Chamberlain calls " new, cheap and quick methods of construction." Although not Minister for Health in Mr. Baldwin's previous Cabinethe was then Chancellor of the Exchequer—he introduced the Act of 1923, which was so obviously sound that, in the face of its own criticism when in Opposition, the Labour Administration made no attempt to repeal it. Indeed, the first section of that Administration's Housing Act prolonged the operation of the Chamberlain Act until 1939. Under the Chamberlain Act more than 160,000 new houses have been authorised by tho Ministry for Health. But, to quoto Mr. Baldwin's election address, "something more is required if the rate of building is to be materially increased and houses are to be produced capable of being let at a rent approaching that which can be afforded by the poorer classes;" This desired result could bo achieved, Mr. Baldwin declared, only by' the employment of new materials and new methods of construction.

His attitude is easily distinguished from that of the other party leaders. Labour fastened its attention mainly on the money section of the problem. By an. expenditure of public funds in subsidies estimated at over £600,000,000, spread over forty years, it proposed to provide the houses reeded, leaving the burden of finance to be borne by the next two generations. TheLiberals, whose solution of the problem was outlined in their election manifesto, turned to men rather than money, to the provision of sufficient skilled labour and tho use of. the reserve of unemployed labour. There can be no doubt that the problem must be dealt with, in part, by tho finding of money and the enlistment of labour. But it would be simplified greatly if production could be cheapened and expedited by tho use of other materials and methods of construction than those now usually employed. The rising cost of production has been mainly responsible for the shortage. Private enterprise in building has been checked. The operation of rising prices of materials and rising rates of wages, coupled with legislative action restricting rents, has led. capital to forsako this channel for others more attractive, hi spite of all its brave words on taking office and its professions of concern for the maintenance of private enterprise until its Socialistic proposals could be initiated in practice, the Labour Government had the chagrin of knowing that the rate of building, inadequate as it had been, decreased considerably during its year of office. When all credit is given to which that Government is entitled, this fact remains. As Mr. Wheatley naively remarked to the amusement of builders assembled at the-' Building Exhibition at Olympia some months ago, " after all, politicians do not produce houses." The experience of his own party in office gave point to the remark. The State's function is necessarily limited. in such a matter. If it could be arbitrarily enlarged, so that under Government compulsion the peoplo of a country were forced to live in State barracks and to pay for that privilege as high a rental as the Government demanded, there would be no problem—not even as to how long such a Government would remain in office. As to their dwellings, the citizens of a modern State expect to exercise some personal preference, and that preference is inevitably affected by what they can get for what they are willing to pay. At bottom, it is this relation between supply and demand that counts; and, if cheaper and at the same tinio better ways of building houses aro found, supply will bo given a better chance of overtaking demand.

That seared for cheapened production will be watched with eagerness. It is one for technical experts. There may be little or much in the ideas of Lord Weir, to which Mr. Neville Chamberlain has made reference. Itis not a matter for laymen. Yet many unable to handle it are tremendously concerned, and they have a right to insist that the inquiry be free from prejudice, that besetting temptation of the professional mind. An architect is apt to favour a style of construction with which he has become enamoured. A builder prefers to use materials and methods that are familiar. A local body, in the fashioning of its by-laws, is so largely in the hands of its professional officers that these stereotyping tendencies affect its administration. These tendencies are exemplified within the radius of this city and its environs, where building bylaws vary without any apparent explanation based on the exigencies of the localities in which they run. A type of construction approved by one council is banned by another. Certain plumbing requirements obligatory in one municipality are, less stringently enforced in others, the difference by no means coinciding with the. varying sanitary necessities of the areas administered. At

Dominion municipal conferences these building eccentricities have been ventilated, -without agreement being reached. On the face of things, there is something haphazard in all this, with a suspicion that by-laws controlling building are sometimes more arbitrary than reasonable. There is due to the community from architects, builders and governing bodies accurate information and freedom to build according to any method technically approved as efficient. Britain's particular problem, to find a cheap substitute for ordinary brickwork or ferro-concrete, is not that of a country like New Zealand, where timber is still freely available ; but the British Government's investigation has importance even here. In an age when the housing shortage is widely serious, an attempt to find materials and methods allowing of cheap construction cannot be viewed , with indifference.