COST OF LIVING.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 15089, 11 December 1919, Page 9

COST OF LIVING.

A PARTIAL SOLUTION. BUILDING OF WORIiERS' HOMES. (Special to the Herald.) WAVERLEY, this day. Referring to the cost of living, Sir Joseph Ward, m his speech at Waverley last night, said that this was a most difficult matter to deal with, but he was confident that his scheme for the erection of workers' homes was practically a solution of the difficulty. Build« ing had been stopped, said the speaker, during, the war because the money was wanted for other things, and to-day the working man was paying rent up to 25s a week. As a result of the- work being stopped we were over 6000 houses short. He proposed to provide homes at a weekly rent of 10s 6d for a fiveroomed house . and llg 6d for a sixroomed house. The money he proposed to use was out of the surplus of £22,000,000 a year of deposits over withdrawals m the Post Office Savings Bank. One million could be taken to build homes for the people who deposited. His opponents had said the proposal was not workable, but had they not said the same thing m connection with the State Advances to Settlers' Act, a measure which he (the speaker) had i placed on the Statute Book, m the face of great opposition, over 25 years before. Not on]y had it proved workable, but it had also shown a profit of over £93,000. The scheme of providing homes for workers earning under £300 a. year could b© carried out at a: cost to the worker, of 3£ per cent', of which U per cent would be sinking fund. A motion of confidence, in Sir Joseph Waxd and the Liberal party was carried j without dissent. The meeting, which is said^to have 'been the best ever held m Waverley, ; concluded with hearty 1 cheers for Sir Joseph Ward.