BIG RELIEF PLAN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 135, 9 June 1932, Page 7

BIG RELIEF PLAN.

2,300,000,000-Dollar Bill Goes To Senate. VETERANS' "CUT" RESTORED. WASHINGTON, June 8. Ihe House of Representatives yesterday approved the 2,300,000,000 dollar relief programme proposed by the Speaker, air. J. N. Garner, and sent it on to the Senate. The voting was 210 to 182. Previously the House had defeated a substitute measure approved by the President, air. Hoover, to eliminate funds for public construction. The fate of the bill in the Senate is doubtful, and Mr. Hoover may veto it if it is finally adopted. The Senate yesterday struck out of the Economy Bill provisions intended to "iave -15,000.000 dollars by curtailing allowances to war veterans.

AWFUL CONDITIONS. Appalling- Misery of America's Leading Cities. PATHETIC HOMELESS. LONDON, June 2. A graphic account of the appalling misery now rampant in New York is cabled by the "Daily Telegraph" correspondent, who draws a contrast between (lie luxury of three years ago and the terrible hardships of 1,200,000 men, women and children now destitute. For over a year 150,000 families, representing 2.">0,000 individuals, have been existing on average earnings from odd jobs of .33/ a month, supplemented by small doles. Before the depression the average earnings of these families were £30 a month. Tho transition from comfortable, wellkept homes to cheerless, dirty, overcrowded hovels in slums will, sociologists declare, leave a marked impression on the life of New York City. Poverty is claiming additional victims by the thousands daily; evictions are steadily increasing and the Courts are being swamped by cases of petty theft by men and women driven by hunger to steal food. Tho heads of 45,000 families, representing 100,000 persons, have just been told that they must shift for themselves. The average family in want, it is estimated, is already £20 in debt.

Desperate men and women plead for bread and medical care for their children at social welfare ofliccs, only to be told that nothing can be done for them. Police are on duty at these centres to' maintain order and eject those who threaten. Homeless in Parks. The city is over-run with beggars, shelter at night is becoming a terrific problem, and overcrowding in tiny tenement rooms is now a menace to health and morals. The park benches are fully occupied day and night, waiting rooms at railway stations arc thronged with pathetic crowds, and vacant plots throughout the city are covered with rude huts built of any old refuse. Similar conditions, says the correspondent, arc reproduced in almost every big city in the United States. The profound depths to which industry in the United States has sunk, illustrating conditions that even the most pessimistic predictions failed to foreshadow, is shown by the statement that deficits amounting to £38,000,000 in the first quarter of 1932 are reported by four leading steel companies, including the United States Steel Corporation.

The president of the American Federation of Labour states that industrial unemployment is increasing, instead of decreasing, as is usual in the spring, and that the number of unemployed is now 8,000,000.

AMERICA ALARMED. CURRENT PROBLEMS. LONDON, June 2. The rumour persists that America's desperate plight is suddenly convincing her that rapid international action alone can prevent a crash. The United States Ambassador, Mr. A. Mellon, had a long interview with the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Sir John Simon. Its nature was not disclosed, but there is good reason for associating it with important developments in the international field. Official quarters are reticent, merely alluding to the fact that the world situation is considerably more fluid than a fortnight ago. They decline to be alarmed about Germany, saying that Dr. Bruening was pledged to a cessation of reparations and the disarmament of France, and therefore no new Government can be more extreme.

NO PACT MADE. AMERICA AND EUROPE. WASHINGTON, June 8. The Under-Secretary of State, Mr. W. R. Castle, yesterday described as ridiculous au article in the London "Evening. Standard" suggesting that the United States has entered into an agreement with European nations to cancel war. debts if they agree to disarm.