HOUSING PROGRAMME TO CONTINUE

Southland Times, Issue 23931, 25 September 1939, Page 2

HOUSING PROGRAMME TO CONTINUE

NO RELAXATION INTENDED BY GOVERNMENT

(United Press Association)

CHRISTCHURCH, September 23.

“The housing programme will be continued just as fast as it is humanly possible for us to do it, utilizing the services of all the men and material that are available,” said the Minister of Housing (the Hon. H. T. Armstrong) this morning. When tradesmen at present working on the construction of buildings at military camps were finished it was hoped that they would take up their previous work where they had left it off.

Emphasizing the necessity for keeping on with the building programme, Mr Armstrong pointed out that while about 6000 skilled workers were engaged directly in the work, it was estimated that some 4000 to 4500 other persons were dependent on it.

bonds tucked away in a drawer and curse the Soviet for repudiating them. These facts, however, did not prevent a rising wave of impatience during the weeks we were in France with what was thought to be the half-heart-ed slowness of the London-Moscow negotiations for getting Russia into the peace-front. There was even much discussion as to how far President Roosevelt’s failure to persuade Congress to allow the democracies to continue to buy American munitions in case of war would encourage Herr Hitler to strike.

Not that the French expect positive help from the United States any more than they are sanguine about Russia’s fighting value as an ally. One felt that they considered the British alliance as the best of their external assets. If even politeness was unable to compel much enthusiasm for the British Government as at present constituted, this was made up for by the consistently nice and hopeful things said about the way in which the British nation was girding up its loins.

“Hitler is doomed,” said one casual contact.

“Why so?” said I. “Because you British will never forget the humiliation of Munich. If you have to wait years, you will get even with him.” FRENCH ARE CONFIDENT Confidence as to the result of war met one everywhere. “Who is the most miserable person in the world? A German Jew in 1939; a German soldier in 1940; a German in 1941.”

This story, allegedly originating in Berlin, was being bandied about to show that all .might not be well with German morale. But it also illustrates the common French view. One found respect for the fighting qualities of the German soldier modified by the belief that Hitler’s Germany would crack like the Kaiser’s, only sooner. As for Premier Mussolini’s Italy, one felt that the only consolation the French would have for a war would be the opportunity it would afford for wiping the floor with her. But many of them fear that this opportunity might be withheld from them by her remaining neutral.