We decided to erect 350 houses. We prepared our plans and put out our contracts. We erected a number of houses for the working classes. We were told by the Government that in deciding on the rents we were to fix such a rent as we deemed reasonable according to wages earned in the district. We fixed the rents, as some of us think, rather too high. We had full local knowledge. We said that for a six-roomed house the rent should be L20 per year, with the rates on top of that, and for a five-roomed house L14 per year, plus rates. What did the Minister of Health do? We sent him a return showing that the earnings of the agricultural labourers in the district averaged L2 6s. per week, and those of other classes of workers L3 10s. per week. The Minister came down on top of us and would not sanction the rents we had fixed. He demanded that the local authority should charge a man earning L3 10s. per week L1 per week as rent, and that for the five-roomed house 16s. 6d. per week should be charged. Do the Government imagine that any local authority, with its knowledge of the condition of things, would be content to erect houses and to ask agricultural labourers with their wives and families to pay a rent of 16s. 6d. per week out of a wage of L2 6s.? Do they imagine that any local authority will erect houses for which they are to charge a man earning L3 10s. per week L1 as rent? Do they imagine that out of the wages they are earning the men could pay such high rents as that? If they do, I can only suggest they should experiment on themselves for one month at least. This bombshell was thrown at the local authorities throughout the length and breadth of the country, with the result that they will not touch housing schemes until the Minister of Health abates his demands in this respect. I maintain that the responsibility for the delay in erecting houses falls directly upon the Government, but for whose action house-building might have been proceeded with, and the present unemployment would not have grown to the extent it has. Then there is the question of raw material. The Government were warned in 1918--in the early part of that year--that there would be a terrible shortage of raw material and especially of bricks. Labour Exchanges sent resolution after resolution urging the Government to take steps to reopen the brickfields which had gone into disuse during the war. We were laughed at for our efforts in pointing out that there must be a terrible shortage unless something in this direction was done. Remember, the unskilled men now waiting for training might have been put on this work, and the necessary raw material could have been provided without difficulty. What happened? Those local