The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 1931. WORK AND LOCAL BODIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 148, 25 June 1931, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 1931. WORK AND LOCAL BODIES.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance. For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

Local bodies who at the same time reduce their staffs and apply the 10 per cent "cut" in wages recall the definition of a pessimist as a man who, being given the choice of two evils, takes both. The comparison is suggested by | the action of several local bodies recently. It lias been hoped that, generally speaking, reduction in wages would be 'an alternative to dismissal that workers themselves would prefer. Another method of using money saved in wage reduction is suggested by the Mayor of Auckland, who proposes that a portion of what the Council will save by application of the 10 per cent "cut" shall be definitely applied to providing work. The proposal cannot be discussed in all its bearings until more details are available as to savings and the possible effect on the rates, but it is clear that Mr. Hutchison's move is an attempt to give the unemployed the benefit of the Council's saving. There are other important questions of a similar nature to which the affairs of the Mount Roskill Board draw attention. The Board has been involved in difficulties more serious than the public realises. Faced with the problem of handling hundreds of relief workers in or about its district, which had added considerably to its own expenditure, it asked advice from the Unemployment Board, and was rapped over the knuckles for its pains. This rebuke, however, does not dispose of difficulties with which this and other bodies are faced. The State says that certain kinds of public work are excluded from relief benefits, but it is obvious that many jobs put in hand by local bodies to help the unemployed break the spirit if not the letter of this rule. We therefore have the curious spectacle of some unemployed under No. 5 scheme doing really useful improvement work, and others chopping down weeds that will grow again in a feAV weeks' time. These restrictions need liberalising, and no doubt Parliament will look into the matter when the whole question of unemployment relief comes before it. Parliament should also cast a sympathetic eye upon local bodies with a small revenue upon whom is thrown the expense of equipping and supervising disproportionately large numbers of unemployed.