UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 249, 20 October 1928, Page 12

UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF.

HOSPITAL BOARD'S BIG TASK.

£36,000 SPENT THIS TEAR.

OVER 200 CASES THIS WEEK.

"Two hundred and twelve seems to haunt us in spring time as well as in winter time/? was the remark of the chairman of the Relief Committee of the Hospital Board, when the list of cases to be considered this week again numbered 212. It was the number considered at the last meeting, and at several previous meetings throughout the winter. It was felt that unless that number could be reduced in some Way ' there could be no improvement shown as far as the condition of unemployment was concerned.

• -Before the meeting; started the members of the board had an informal conference with the chairman, who pointed out this serious position they were drifts ing into simply through the unsatisfactory state, of the labour market. Unless some improvement took place they were going to reacn over £40,000 at the end pf the year, and their finance was not elastic enough to stand the continuous strain. Three years ago they were .appalled when the relief for a yea*reached £24,000, because it had only been £18,000 the year before that, but the position to-day was that they were going to exceed their estimate by fully £12,000. Now the fine weather was here it was thought there might be a little cheese paring by cutting down the fuel bill, and yesterday a record was, established by giving away only one bag of coal. It seemed a miserable way to start to economise, because little children might be the chief' sufferers. Several men who had been getting two meals a day and a bed were told that their, allowance .could not be further continued. Many pleaded for rent, but a reply had to be given that no allowance was made in that direction when it was a case of pure unemployment.

Interviewed after the meeting members admitted that they were at their wits' end to find a solution of the problems which confronted them for undoubtedly the unemployed question was a national one, and not purely a local one. Auckland was suffering more than any of the other centres, because of its genial climate, and that was where the present method was unfair and why the cost of unemployment relief should come but of . the Consolidated Fund and each part of the; Dominion made to bear its fair share of the burden.

s One member said that undoubtedly we were by our present methods creating a class of unemployables, who were those who were living in our slum areas. He had seen, in the newspapers that a report to the City Council had said that there were only twelve houses in the city which .could Jje condemned for hearth reasons. ' He was amazed at such a statement, for from experience ho knew that if that-number had been multiplied by itself that number would b$ nearer the marie? The house shortage hdd 'hwrttiTuorevthan ovo-couprand with •tie chairman lately they had made: art inspection of the outer districts and had founds dozens ;of. small 'empty- houses With large sections, a' 4

An effort should be made to get the people to go away from the city streets and ail their allurements and get them into houses where they could grow a few vegetables' on 5 the large sections, instead of small backyards where there uras scarcely room to swing a cat. It wag a fact that recently a farmer in the King Country, who wanted a man to help to milk his cows at 30/ per week and found, could not find a person among the Unemployed in Auckland who was willing to take the job on! The fresh air country spirit was what they wanted to foster so that men who had been unemployed for long periods could get a new outlook and be freed from the city outlook which was getting them down. They had. .to face facts as they found them, and those who were behind the scenes knew that some new development scheme, which meant an entire change of policy, was the only hope of bringing back a normal state of things when the people of the country would be able to get the work -which they needed. Social reformers everywhere were looking to the coming election as the means of bringing about the. change they bo much desired.