HOME MODERNISING

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1050, 14 August 1930, Page 7

HOME MODERNISING

BIG BUSINESS INCREASE FORETOLD TALK TO CREDIT MEN The scheme for home modernising which has proved so successful in the United States in reviving the building trade and helping all trades generally was outlined by Mr. R. A. Aickin, at a luncheon of the Auckland Creditmen’s Club yesterday. Mr. Aickin. who is chairman of the committee set up by the club to investigate the possibility of a similar move here, showed what the j results would be in Auckland. The speaker stressed the need for some definite move immediately. This morning’s Parliamentary reports stated that 5,000 men in the building and allied trades were o#t of work. Tho movement would treat the building scheme from a community viewpoint rather than from one of individual profit, and would thereby help to check unemployment. It- would spread rapidly through New Zealand and bring the building trade back to its former glory. In 1928-20 permits by local bodies alone were of a total value of more than £9,000,000. Of this, new dwellings accounted for less than half, additions being only about £600,000. This showed the scope for the proposed modernising scheme. In that year 7,500 men were actually employed in this trade, wages totalling £3,417.000, a similar amount being spent in the allied trades of plumbing, sawmilling, and joinerymaking. Nearly 75 per cent, of the value of the building permits was spent in wages in New Zealand among surveyors, land agents, architects, manufacturers, carriers and the actual workmen, and the railways received just under half a million pounds in freight on New Zealand timbers. New building activity also helped insurance companies and local bodies, who received higher rates. Mr. Aickin pointed out that when business was dull merchants and manufacturers generally began to try cut-throat methods, but exhaustion had now been reached. Huge stocks of building materials had been built up, and new buildings erected too fast for present needs. Many houses were to let today because they were old and dilapidated, and tenants had moved to more modern buildings. Mr. Aickin said: “We are going to show home-owners here that they themselves will benefit by this move, at the same time helping their neighbours in the building and allied trades. I can conceive of no other scheme which would have such wide-reaching effects throughout the business community.” Old houses in a district brought down land values, and a modernising move would bring these values back, he said. Favourable comment had been made ih nearly all quarters. The support of the commercial community would be sought at a meeting shortly, and he felt assured would be secured without difficulty. One institution which loaned large amounts on house property had agreed to increase mortgages up to j 20 per cent, to allow modernising to { be carried out. In Melbourne. a syndicate had bought up old dwellings and modernised them, securing a small fortune from the profits, but here the gain would be divided among the whole com m unity. "There is one aspect of unemployment we all shirk,” said Mr. Aickin. ’‘That is putting ourselves in tho place of the out-of-work, and we little realise their misery. This scheme will not solve the problem, but will go a long way toward doing so."