WORKERS' DWELLINGS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2842, 2 September 1908, Page 66

WORKERS' DWELLINGS.

(Fkom Ouji Own CoBRESPONnENT.) WELLINGTON, August 27.

A discussion on workers' dwellings took place this afternoon. During the debate on the Estimates of the Labour Department, the Minister (the Hon. J. A. Millar) stated that of the 105 houses already erected only two weife unoccupied, tliese being in Dunedin. In Auckland and Christchurch, he said, the houses were taken' up before they are built. He added, however, that it was useless for anybody to expect the Government to buy land at £600 or £700 an acre and to build cheap workers' dwellings on them. Mr Bollard said that the system of socalled workers' dwellings was an absolute farce. No provision, he eaid, had been made for the man with a family whose earnings did not average more than 36s a week. Men who were earning lew than £2 a, week should not be called upon to pay more than from 7e to 8s a week in rent. He urged that the Government should assist workers by enabling them to obtain sections at a reasonable rate, and putting up the "shell" of a house at a cost of, say, £150, leaving the workers to complete it at his convenience. Mr Maseey said that the workers whom Parliament had in view when the act was passed were those earning £2 a week or less, but the dwellings that had been erected were far beyond the means of these workers. He lived in the neighbourhood of some of these so-called workers' dwellings, and he knew thiit a great many of them were occupied by comniieeion agents, commercial travellers, and so forth. The great majority of them were of no use to the ordinary working man, as they were too dear.

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