Mr. MacDonald then came to the very important questions (which
formed the real substance of his speech) of housing and unemployment. The Government had decided to continue the subsidy policy for housing, and their ideal was to build houses at an average price of £.500, and to let them at an average rent of 9s. a week including rates. They were now working out the possibilities of construction and finance with local authori- ties. They were determined to go much further than Mr. Neville Chamberlain. They wanted really to face at last the problem of how to house the wage-earners of the country. The dilution of the skilled labour of the building unions should not be impossible, and the building trade as a whole must have a guarantee of con- tinuous work for a certain number of years. The work- men would have a perfect right to say that in return for their consent to dilution, they should receive from the community a concurrent guarantee that in the course of the next year dilution should not be carried so far as to swamp them. He was confident that the Minister of Health would shortly be able to announce that an agreement with the building unions had been reached.
