Rabaul Home-Builders

Are Not Encouraged

From Our Own Correspondent

Rabaul, Dec. 15.

¥>UILDING loan conditions, as Jj applied to home builders in the Territory, were strongly criticised by members of the Rabaul Town Advisory Council at the De cember meeting.

Under the terms of the Housing Loans Ordinance the maximum loan available to a home builder is £2,000 Never, in any instance, can the loan exceed 90 per cent, of the value of the house.

Before any portion of the loan is advanced to the applicant, he must first spend on the building at least the difference between the amount of the loan and the total amount the house will cost.

For this generous act on the part of the Government the rate of in terest charged is 6 per cent., on which there is a rebate of 1 per cent, if all payments are met on the due date. These payments in clude a portion of the capital ad vanced.

A borrower granted a loan of £1,500 would first have to spend the initial 10 per cent, of the ultimate value of the home and then pay

back, in the first year, about £l5O.

The yearly instalments will de crease gradually as the capital loan is repaid.

Amended Building Regulations now demand a relatively high standard of building from all home builders in the town area. In essence, they demand that anyone deciding to build a home without outside financial aid must be financially solvent to a far greater extent than the average Australian m his home country. To obtain Government help, the home builder must in addition give proof of con siderable solvency and repay his in debtedness at a rate which, to many, would be a severe imposition.

Of prospective home-builders in Rabaul at least 50 per cent, are Chinese, Malays, and half-castes, with average earnings of less than £l2 a week. Many of them have large families.

Are these people to be relegated, for want of higher earning power, to an area outside the town boundaries where building regula tions do not apply? Or be com pelled to work for the Administra tion or a private employer (who will provide a house) and live in con stant fear of losing their job and, with it, the roof over their heads?

To aim for the elimination of

slums and stricter town planning a laudable civic goal—if tempei with practical far-sightedness.

The Territory needs the Govei ment, and the Government ne( the people. Not the itinerant or or two-term civil servant, t planter who runs his property fr< the mainland through a manag or the invester who enjoys the fr of his investments away from t country, but the home builder t man with a real stake in the futi of the Islands.

Cummings, Chairman the Rabaul Town Advisory Cornu said; “There are many governmer m other parts of the world w w ouW provide them (the peopl with houses for nothing.” if Bishop John Aubin, Freni Roman Catholic missionary, i turned to the Solomon Islands i cently after having taken his fn home leave for 21 years. He h been home only three times sin he began his ministry in the islan 47 years ago. Bishop Aubin sa that m some ways his present st* of 80 was having more trouble cor bating some modern influenc among the natives than in stam mg out cannibalism at the turn the century.