"STARVATION WAGES."

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 95, 23 April 1931, Page 10

"STARVATION WAGES."

WHOLE COUNCIL PROTESTS.

FAMXLY UVING ON POTATOES.

TAKAPUNA COUNCILLORS' VIEWS,

The Takapuna Borough Council last night unanimously decided to protest to the Prime Minister concerning relief rates of pay, which, members contended, must reduce the standard of living. The matter was introduced' by Mr. J. Guiniven, who, in a letter to_ the council, said they should emphatically protest against the attitude of_ the Government in compelling working men to "accept starvation wages. If the Unemployment Act was allowed to remain, on the Statute Book, before long New Zealand would be & nation of paupers. "How can any single man live on tAvo days' work each week at 9/ per day?" he asked. "How can any housewife feed and clothe her family on her husband's wages of 12/6 per day for three days? Where is the money for the landlord to come from ? The Hon. A. J. Stallworthy says no person should starve, but I could take him to where people are starving. Does he expect every able-bodied man and respectable woman to proceed to the - Hospital Board's office and kneel lown before officials and ask for bread? Should not every local body, as representatives of the people, protest strongly ?" Mr. Titcliener described the position as most outrageous. "Happy and contented people can throw off any burden in the course of time, but directly expenditure exceeds their income, it lowers the moral standard and the spirit of the people," he said. "After the Government takes £1 10/ per year from all by way of unemployment tax, it then states that it cannot carry on. The Mayor, Mr. J. W. Williamson, agreed with the previous speakers, and said that he knew one family in TakaJmna which had since last Thursday been iving on nothing else but potatoes. "It in impossible," he said, "for either marked or single men to exist on the wages paid to relief workei'6." Oil the motion of Mr. Guiniven, it was unanimously decided to forward an emphatic protest to the Prime Minister, together with full information concerning 'several cases of hardship and poverty hi Takapuna. It was also resolved to >vjite to the Hospital Board suggesting that the board should employ an investigating officer, preferably a woman, to visits' the needy.