UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 15, 19 January 1931, Page 6

UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF.

Within the past week this city has been the scene of several demonstrations by large bodies of unemployed. Though the circumstances which have produced this situation are beyond our control, it is impossible to avoid feeling some degree of humiliation that men and women in our country should be subjected to such experiences and that so little can be done, promptly and effectually, to help those in need. For the most part, these workless workers have conducted themselves admirably, with strict regard for the law and the rights of others, and they certainly have a very strong body of public sympathy with them. Unfortunately, it is most difficult to transform sympathy into material aid of a kind that will meet the needs of men without work or wages and women and children without proper clothing or food. The emergency is a great and a cruel one, and while we have full confidence that it can be tided over, we hope that private benevolence will do its utmost to supplement the efforts that the .Government is now making through the Unemployment Board to meet this crisis. We do not think that all possible methods of private philanthropy have yet been fully organised here. As to the Unemployment Board, it is noteworthy that Mr. Finn and Mr. Mcßrine have spoken publicly of the apparent failure of the Board to utilise the provisions afforded by the Act for subsidising private work by local committees. This expedient and any other method that experience can suggest and that economic argument can justify should be exploited at once and to the full.