DEPRESSED AND HUNGRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 226, 24 September 1927, Page 12

DEPRESSED AND HUNGRY.

ALL SHOULD HELP. BACKWASH OF DEPRESSION. Many a "nest egg" has disappeared during the past few months, and it is one of the saddest things in connection with the present unemployment that the thrifty and the careful have to suffer with the rest, and many of them are just at the end of their resources. Everybody does not spend their money foolishly, and there are many who have not been inside a picture theatre or had any new clothes for many months, in the hope that things would improve and that their savings would see them through the slump without having to ask for charity. It is really wonderful how many old people brought up to simpV) ways in what they call the good old days, and whose wants seem to be few, wonder what all the cry about shortness of money means, for with the 35/ per week they get as pension they find that they can rub along nicely, although some of them have had to supplement their income by getting a small grant from the Hospital Board. At the other end of the list are the very young married couples who are really in a bad way, Their rent is often 30/, and while the husband is in work they can manage to pay that amount, but once out of employment the situation is sad indeed. Cases have been helped in the city recently which show how hastily many young people enter into the matrimonial state. Husband and wife, not long into the twenties, with young children, have early come into contact with the disabilities of unemployment, and they do 1 not know where to turn for food. It is , too late to lecture these young people, and there are dozens of such cases. The situation has to be faced and relief has to be given. It is a bad beginning to their married life, and it has a bad effect upon their general outlook of things, because they seek avenues of relief, which, broadly speaking, they should not need help from. The places they live in are not, as a rule, models of what the happy homes of young married couples setting out in life are expected to be. High wages earned by young people has led to a good deal of self-indulgence and pleasure-seeking, which in the end means nothing but selfishness, and many cases have recently come under notice where there has been a disinclination on the part of relatives in good positions to help. Those who have been caught in the 'backwash of the depression are now in sore straits. At the relief meeting this week the remark was made that the moral of the people seem in many cases to have declined by the state of things existing, and the gloom which was expected to pass away with the lengthening days and the coming of spring, still hung like a pall over a great majority of ::jg people. This had often led to lack iT effort in getting work in avenues that were open to them but not availed of till others more optimistic than themselves pointed the way. A very praiseworthy case was that of a delicate man who set out with a trolly to sell vegetables and managed to make 15/ per week. This did not mean much, it was true, but it gave a good meal or two to his seven children. The energy of the wife did the rest and the grey mare proved to be the better horse. Landlords have in a great number of cases met the situation splendidly, ana have reduced rente in a most praiseworthy way, and are willing to wait till better times come to help honest people in their hour of trial by Jetting them remain in their dwellings. On 'he other hand, there is the house-owner who has little of the milk of human kindness in his composition, and he wants to extort hie pound of flesh. Bents have been proved to be too high in many directions, and there has been a disinclination to meet the situation as it should be met in such a time of stress. Cases could be stated of kind-hearted houseowners, however, who could not have done more for those who occupied their houses, and this is one bright ray of hope that the majority of people think that special concessions should be made In such an unexampled depression when there is more actual starvation existing than has been the case for a generation. Aβ the chairman of the relief committee said this week after a long sitting lasting about seven hours, "the situation is awful, and does not appear to be improving."