The Daily Worker

February 9, 1924

BRIT LABORITES SAY HOUSING IS MAJOR PROBLEM

Plan to Erect 200,000 Dwellings Yearly

(Special to The Daily Worker)

LONDON.—Following a conference on housing held yesterday at the ministry of labor at which representatives of the building unions and building trades employers were present, the Labor Party government is prepared to go before Parliament next week with its program on this important domestic question. The government was represented by Tom Shaw, minister of labor; Margaret Bonfield, parliamentary secretary; John Wheatley, minister of health, and D. Adamson, secretary for Scotland.

One of the difficulties that the Labor Party government must meet in its proposal for relieving the housing situation and at the same time cutting down unemployment, is contained in its endeavor to get the building trades union to relax their rules and take in workers with little building trades experience.

Unions Want Guarantee.

The unions are said to be agreeable to this proposal if the government will in turn guarantee a building program that will employ their members for a period of fifteen or twenty years. The Labor Party government is apparently willing to enter into this understanding with the unions if financial arrangements can be made. The need for workers' dwellings is so great that this length of time will be needed to carry out the program as outlined.

200,000 Homes Yearly.

It is estimated that 200,000 new homes per year are needed and some idea of the immensity of the proposal is gathered when it is known that estimates already prepared show that the existing brick plants are unable to supply the required amount of material.

The ministry of health has let it be known that any attempt on the part of building material concerns to take advantage of the new demand for their wares will be met by drastic measures.

What Workers Expect.

Among the masses of workers, organized and unorganized, who supported the Labor Party, it is expected that the government in addition to the immediately moving to relieve the housing and unemployment situation, will make substantial reductions in the taxes on sugar, tea and the cheaper forms of entertainment, encourage agriculture, which is in a bad way, and increase the payments to the blind, war victims, war widows and widowed mothers.

A cut is also expected in the naval, military and air budgets but not in the pay of the army and navy personnel.

While the Labor Party government is known to intend to devote most of its attention to domestic problems, now that Soviet Russia has been recognized there is much speculation as to the attitude the government will adopt towards France.

It is known that Premier MacDonald intends to visit France in May, when the French elections will be over and the view is expressed here that with firmness in the government's attitude on French policy the new Chamber of Deputies may be disposed to incline a more sympathetic ear to the British reparation proposals.

Firm With France.

In an interview published today by the Manchester Daily Dispatch, the Labor Party premier says that the hesitant attitude of the late government was largely responsible for the misunderstandings with France.

He says: "All that is gone. Great Britain will no longer be content to sit and watch events, and the result of this new attitude seems to be succeeding beyond expectations."

The dockers are threatening to strike but are still conducting negotiations with their employers. The strike has been set for a week from today and may create a serious problem for the government exceeding that of the railway stoppage.