DISTRESSED AREAS

Waikato Independent, Volume XXXVII, Issue 3273, 2 March 1937, Page 7

DISTRESSED AREAS

MOVEMENT OF FAMILIES ENGLISH DISTRICT SCHEME. From the distressed areas of England 250 families are to be brought to more prosperous neighbourhoods, housed in cottage homesteads, and given capital of about £2O with which to plant trees, begin to grow their own vegetables and fruit, and keep poultry, says the London "Daily Mail." This experiment, it is expected, will be greatly expanded later. Setting up the 250 homesteads will cost about £125,000—£500 each—which will be met by the special areas fund. Normal rents will be between 10s and lis per week. The children of the families when they leave school will find themselves in districts where employment is easier to get than in the distressed areas.

Busy industrial centres in the Mid-, lands and South will be chosen for the cottage homesteads. Suggested areas include Rugby, Coventry, Luton, Bedford and Guildford. In his final report, Mr Malcolm Stewart, before he relinquished the post of Commissioner for the Special Areas, recommended the establishment of these homesteads.

Now Mr Stewart's successor, Sir George Gillett, has approved the suggestion. The work will be undertaken by the Land Settlement Association. Families transferred to these homesteads will be those of men over 50 and containing at least three adolescents not in regular employment.

So long as he. is unemployed the occupier will continue to draw his unemployment allowances. Mr Ernest Brown, Minister of Labour, stated in the House of Commons that from January 1, 1935, to October 31, 1936, 49,789 persons in the special areas had been placed in employment in other districts at an estimated expenditure of £230,000.