THE WAIPUKURAU PRESS THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 1934. HOUSE-BUILDING SUBSIDY.

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXIX, Issue 149, 21 June 1934, Page 4

THE WAIPUKURAU PRESS THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 1934. HOUSE-BUILDING SUBSIDY.

The Wellington Chamber of Commerce has given its blessing to a resolution passed by a meeting of architects and members of allied industries urging the reinstatement of the Building. Subsidy Scheme to be applied to dwelling houses only, on the ground that since its cessation there had been a serious lessening of building activity, and containing suggestions for the method of the application of the subsidy. Mr. Andrew Fletcher, reporting on the visit he and Mr. W. P. Cuthbertson had made to the Unemployment Board, said: “We were given quite a lot of information which I am not in a position to pass on here to-night, but we were told that there was still a considerable amount of work to be done that had not yet been started. It was stated that the board was not of the opinion that the time was yet ripe for the reinstatement of the scheme, but there was a free admission that one of the effects of the scheme had been the putting into employment of a great number of persons who had previously been working in building and allied industries. The board was carefully watching the position and unemployment, and we were told that in the event of finding that the conditions are going to mean a serious curtailment of work, they would at least considei giving enough employment under the scheme to meet xequirements.” We fully appreciate the desirability of encouraging the building trade as helpful to the cause of employment and giving stimulus to increased spending power, but would sound a note of warning as to‘ the risk of extending such operations beyond the point at which the maximum of essential housing requirements in any community have been met, else a further serious burden will have been placed upon the general body of landlords. Many of these property owners, as is well-known, have been called upon to share an unduly heavy proportion of the misfortunes of the workless and others suffering from reduced incomes. Not a few; mortgagees have also had a hard <‘row to hoe” during the past three years as the result of the depression and the deflationary course pursued by the State in various non-democratic directions, especially in the matter of wage-salary “cuts,” unemployment levies as well as taxation, lessened income-tax exemption, the sales tax, and higher exchange. We do not forget that the adoption of a non-graduated basis of imposing the new burdens enumerated has served to accentuate the injustice of taxing sections of the people hitherto excluded from direct imposts because not being possessed of surplus wealth.

BRIGHTER PASTORAL OUTLOOK.

In his address as retiring president of the Royal Agricultural Show, Mr. L. R. Macfarlane, evidently speaking as a representative of the sheep-farming section of the producers rather than a spokesman for the dairy farmers, stated that for many this last year had been the best since 1914. Improvement had been seen in quantity and quality of production and in high working profits, which had enabled most of the losses of the past four years to be paid off. One of the reasons for the improvement was that the Government had refused to be stampeded into doing rash things but had steadily considered the general inteiests of the one industry upon which the Dominion relied. Other factors were the depreciation of New Zealand s currency in line with the action taken by the rest of the world, increased prices obtainable overseas owing to natural reaction to the low prices of the previous year, lower costs of production and more economical methods of the management of land to a greater extent than ever before by men with practical experience, and the absence of speculation in farm property. He predicted that when confidence in land returned fully, the business world would be falling over itself to get money into primary production at any sort of low interest. It was the duty of every farmer to maintain and increase that confidence. There was another and greater reason for returning prosperity—the spirit of the farmers themselves, their determination to make their farms pay and to increase production in spite of the discouraging prices.