PECULIAR PROBLEMS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 136, 10 June 1932, Page 3

PECULIAR PROBLEMS.

UNEMPLOYMENT AT TAUPO. WHOLE BURDEN ON ONE LOCAL BODY. RELIEF FUNDS INSUFFICIENT. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) TAUPO, this day. The Taupo Unemployment Committee last night took strong exception to the fact that for weeks past the allocation to this district for unemployment has not been sufficient to give unemployed men in the district the amount of work to which they arc entitled under the Act. In the [last week, for instance, men eligible for four days' work could only be allotted two and a half days, this providing an amount on which the men could not exist, as the cost of living here is high. It was decided to write to the Commissioner of Unemployment 'and stress the fact that because the Taupo County is inoperative, men have to come in considerable distances to seek employment under the one operative local body in the area, that is. the Taupo Road Board. Therefore the roll of unemployed is a surprisingly large one. In consideration of these circumstances and of the fact that there is no farming and practically no regular employment around Taupo, that the soil is too barren for the men to produce any considerable portion of their sustenance, and that there are no organisations in this scattered region to promote charitable aid. the committee is strongly recommending to the Unemployment Commissioner not only that the weekly allocation should be sufficient to give all registered local men the amount of relief work to which they are entitled by law, but also that the stand-down week be foregone in this area to meet the special conditions.

The attention of tlio Unemployment Commissioner is also to be drawn to the extreme hardship under which unemployed men are labouring in the inoperative Tanpo County, outside the scope of the Taupo Uoad Board.