RENT FIGURES

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11657, 23 October 1923, Page 5

RENT FIGURES

COURT’S JUSTIFICATION

ST ITISTICS USED ARE "REASONABLY CORRECT ’* INQUIRY NOT DESIRABLE. Per Press Association. DUNEDIN, October 22. In the course of the cost of living pronouncement, the Arbitration Court states: “We desire to deal in detail with rent figures, because there appears to be considerable misapprehension as to the method by which they are ascertained. An application was recently made to the Court on behalf of tho Wellington Trades and Labour Council to afford an opportunity of reopening the matter of rent statistics, to hear evidence in regard to rents actually paid. We do not think it reasonable to reopen the matter. We cannot see how any further evidence could add usefully to the information in possession of the Court on tho subject." EXTREMES NOT CONSIDERED. After detailing the methods by which its rent figure* are obtained, the Court 6tates:—“Ou the whole wc feel justified in concluding that the increase of 49 t? per cent, above the 1914 level, discUeed by the rent statistics, is a fair index of the increase m the cost of housing, m the wider sense, since 1914. While ive recognise that there are many cases in which high rents are being paid for houses, we have also to take into consideration many eases it. which houses are held on long lease at moderate rents, many cases in which no increase in rent, or only a email increase, has been demanded. We cannot base calculations on either extreme, nor can we overlook the advantage possesjied by many owner-occu-piers over rent payers when we consider the broader question of the cost of housing. BEST METHOD AVAILABLE. “To sum up, our use of rent statistics in order to arrive at the movement of the average cost of housing is justified on four grounds : (1) That if wo discard rent statistics we should have resort to the opinions or estimates of experts, which from the nature of the case would be most unsatisfactory. (2) That though not fully representative the statistics available are accurate as far as they go. (3) That there is every reason to believe that they indicate with rea* onable correctness the percentage movement in rents generally. (4) That even if they under-state the increase in rents, in the narrow sense, this is at least balarced by their being used ns the index ot the movement in the average cost of housing, in the wider sense.”