STATE BUILDINGS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3809, 16 September 1936, Page 4

STATE BUILDINGS

PRODUCTION OF JOINERY. CAPACITY OF EXISTING FACTORIES. Strong protest against the Government’s proposal to erect plants for the mass production of joinery fittings as part of its new housing scheme were voiced in a statement made to The Dominion on Saturday by representatives of two large North Island joinery factories. It was contended that the Government had been misinformed as to the productive capacity of existing joinery factories, which were more than capable of handling the requirements of a State housing scheme. When inquiries were made by the Government to ascertain the amount of extra work existing factories could cope with it was told that the demand “could not be satisfied,” said the spokesman for the factories. “This information, coming apparently from an interested quarter, was accompanied by the suggestion that the Government build its own factories. “We say emphatically that the joinery factories were not consulted in regard to this matter. The existing factories, in the North Island alone, have plant capable of producing joinery, on mass production lines, sufficient to supply 17,000 houses of average standard a year. This would employ 2200 men, the average wages of whom would amount to £520,000 a year, and also we are 400 per cent, over-capitalised. The door factories in New Zealand are acknowledged to be more modern and efficient than those in Australia, and besides, as all the skilled men are already absorbed in our factories, our staffs would have to be drawn on to supply the new plants—they would be auctioned for. “No tenders were called to supply the machinery for the new factories but it has already been ordered in England. The manufacture of the interior door will probably be offered to us as a sop. “Quite a number of the Labour Party who have any knowledge of what is o’oing on, are not in favour of the schemei, but it seems that only one or two members actually know the true position—the rest are in the dark.” PRIME MINISTER’S ASSURANCE. “The Mayos of Lower Hutt may rest assured the Governmant is going to do nothing that will spoil his garden suburb,” said the Prime Minister, Mr Savage, commenting on a discussion by the Lower Hutt Borough Council in reference to the Government’s housing scheme. Fears were expressed by the council that the scheme would result in the appearance of monotonous rows of mass-produced houses. “The houses we build,” said Mr Savage, “will be real homes and nobody will be able to point at them and say, ‘They are Government houses.’ We are not going to build houses according to one pattern. I venture to say the houses we build in Lower Hutt will be on a par with what are there now. The Government will also see to it that the sections on which the houses are built will be large enough to enable the people living in them to have a decent garden.” THE PAYMENT OF RATES. MINISTER’S EXPLANATION. Invited to comment regarding the payment of rates on State-owned houses the Minister of Finance, the Hon. W. Nash, said he made the point clear when moving tha second reading of the State Advances Corporation Act in the House of Representatives on Mjay 28th. Mr Nash said he then stated: “Our proposals provide for rates to be paid to the local authority when a house is let, so that in respect of properties of which the State is mortgagee in possession, or of Which the State is agent for the mortgagor that are let at ordinary rentals, full rates will be "aid to the local authorities concerned.”