TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays WEDNESDAY, 5th JUNE, 1946 CAPITAL AND HOUSING

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 72, Issue 6238, 5 June 1946, Page 6

TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays WEDNESDAY, 5th JUNE, 1946 CAPITAL AND HOUSING

PERHAPS the greatest deficiency in the pool of supply, when set against all other domestic needs, is in the sphere of housing, and accumulation of the demand is proving serious and distressful. The extreme of hardship is being experienced by all too many people, and the disruption of family life gives rise to many social and domestic problems. But in the background stand policy questions which indicate past follies, not the least being the terms of tenancy or tenure of household properties. The Government has deliberately and definitely discouraged private enterprise in building. Its tenancy laws are discriminatory in the extreme, taking from the Courts any powers of discretion with regard to the assessment of responsibility or hardship and placing the property-owner at so great a disadvantage that private enterprise can no longer engage in the provision of rental homes. Administrative restrictions in other directions have tended to restrain home-builders, and although handicaps have been surmounted in many directions the supply has fallen far short of the demand. The original programme of the Government was for State rental houses, and the belief took hold that housing was to become the Government’s responsibility. But State building has not fulfilled the expectations of those who sponsored the scheme. Actually, however, tenure questions must be more clearly defined, and with tenure the rights of all citizens, owners or tenants, must be recognised more evenly. It is of great interest to note that a Labour Government in New South Wales has decided that half the total of Government houses built in that State will be offered for sale to tenants on easy terms. This contrasts with the attitude of the Labour Government in New Zealand, which makes all its house occupants life tenants. A Liberal Government in New Zealand many years ago enacted the Workers’ Dwellings Act which gave exceptional terms of tenancy and tenure. For a deposit of only £lO the worker was enabled to acquire his home by payment of the equivalent of a rental over a term of 251 years. The wisdom of that policy was apparent. Many people were enabled to acquire their own homes, but more important than that was the effect on finance and citizenship. There are two methods of financing home building—the nne by community savings and the other by the present Government’s method of creating Reserve Bank credits. This was touched upon by Mr Lefeaux, ex-governor of the Reserve Bank, in his farewell address recently, when he referred to “ the fundamentally unsound financial policy for State housing schemes by means of advances from the Reserve Bank, which method is really just the same as turning on the printing press.” Even before that our Minister of Finance had sensed the dangers which lurked in the background of his Government’s policy dangers which unfortunately are now realised. Mr Nash stated:

I say that even the building of houses creates economic difficulties if we build them on Reserve

Bank credits. I think we should build them in spite of the fact that we create economic difficulties, and if we do build houses we put into the purchasing pool millions of pounds. Of course, the capital assets are there, but the return from those capital assets is deferred. In spending £10,700,000 on houses we have put the money into the purchasing pool, and that has increased the demand for consumable goods without creating consumable goods. Until we increase consumable goods we create difficulties in spending money even on permanent assets. Granted that to-day the domestic disorders consequent on the housing shortage are so great that considerations of finance are of small account, and that every effort must be made to overtake the leeway of the past, j it is timely indeed that legislative I amendments restored to the house- I owner the rights that are equitable j and proper; and that the people [ should be encouraged to turn more i in the direction of home ownership, ' and that there should be less reliance ’ on th& State. The fact that New ' South Wales wants at least half its • State housing tenants to have home- ' ownership is decidedly encouraging. • The Workers’ Dwellings Act in New ; Zealand provides the method which j would enable many more people in ; this country to find their rightful ! pl. ce in the citizenship of the Domi- j n on, to finance the building of homes through private savings, and to thus improve both the domestic and the financial conditions.