WORKERS’ HOMES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3101, 20 August 1913, Page 77

WORKERS’ HOMES.

EXPERIENCES IN AUSTRALIA. (From Och Own Correspondents.) WELLINGTON, August 7

Amongst the questions that were inquired into by the Mayor of Auckland (Mr C. .1. Parr) during his recent visit to Australia was that of workers’ homes.

In Queensland, where the Government has erected -hundreds of workers’ homes, none of the dwellings is let. A workman taking one of these dwellings is required to find 25 per cent, of the total cost, and the balance of 75 per cent, is advanced by the State at 4-per cent, and is made repayable in weekly instalments on building society lines. The Government does not finance the scheme by borrowing in London, but takes the money from the Government Savings Bank deposits-, which are ear-marked for this purpose and for loans to local bodies. The sum that the worker has to provide is usually between £SOO and £4OO. The cottages are comfortable five-roomed dwellings, and the size of the sections in Brisbane is about 33ft by 100 ft. In the smaller towns and country districts the sections are, of course, larger. This system has been availed of to a large extent. Whilst in Sydney Mr Parr revisited the workers’ home village at Daceyville, where about 50 cottages are now in the occupation of workers. These homes are let at rentals ranging from 15s to 18s a week. “ The Labour Government,” said Mr Parr, ‘‘ by using day labour, getting the timber from the State sawmill, bricks from the State kiln, and so forth, hoped to be able to build the houses cheaply enough to enable them to be let at 10s a week, but the result has been disappointing both to the Government and to the workers. Day labour and -State socialistic enterprise has proved a costly undertaking. Daceyville is four miles 'from the city, and when tram fares are added to the rent I am afraid that the worker is not much better off than he was under the private landlord. The housing of the worker is a great and urgent problem, but it has certainly not been succcssfullv solved bv the present New South VTales Socialistic Government.”