QUESTIONS TO ANSWER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 261, 3 November 1932, Page 9

QUESTIONS TO ANSWER.

APPLICANTS FOR DOLE. RIOTS IN NEW SOUTH WAXES. INCITEMENT BY MR. LANG. (Prom Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, October 28. A very difficult situation has arisen here over the dole question. Imposition and fraud have been practised on such a large scale to secure the dole that the State has been paying close on a million a year more than it should have expanded on this object. Since the Stevens Government took office careful investigation has resulted in the detection of fraud to such an extent that over £500,000 a year is now being saved; under this head. To protect the taxpayer still further against "the danger of imposition, the Department has issued a new form of application to be signed by all requiring the dole. This form includes 32 questions, and some of them are regarded by the men and women on the dole as being needlessly inquisitorial. The questions to which most serious objections have been raised are the following: "Are you residing with your wife (husband); if not, state reason and give whereabouts of husband (wife) ? What endeavours are you making at present to support yourself and your family ? Are you able to provide in any degree for the sustenance of yourself, wife and family? Is it possible for you to assist yourself by growing any vegetables or other food on the property on which you reside ? If not, furnish reasons therefor." Of course, there are many others that are regarded as objectionable, and the loudest outcry is being raised by those who have found it particularly easy to secure the dole hitherto, and cannot see whv anv restriction should be placed upon them now. But Ministers have been careful to let the malcontents and the general public know that there is a great -deal 4» ha eaJd^othaether aMe, . *

Similar Questions Under Lang. Perhaps the simplest way of summarising tire situation will be to quote what the Minister in charge, Mr. Hawkins, and the acting-Premier, Mr. Bruxner, have said in reply to their critics. They have pointed out that all applicants for the dole, or other forme of relief, have been theoretically required in the past to answer similar questions. When Mr. Baddeley was in charge of dole distribution, under Mr. Lang, he was forced, by the constant occurrence of frauds, to issue a questionnaire, which included 25 of the 32 questions that applicants are now called upon to answer. It is only 18 months ago that Mr. Baddeley issued his application form for relief throughout the metropolitan area. But it got. no further, because the then Minister, alarmed by ominous mutterings of discontent, speedily withdrew it from the southern districts, and he had not the courage even to attempt its applications in the northern districts where, as the reports of his own officials showed, the impositions amounted to over 20 per cent of the recipients. As to the seven new questions not included in the Lang questionnaire, Ministers have been careful to assure everybody that these are intended not only to prevent fraud, but to enable the authorities to discover every deserving case, so that no one really eligible for the dole ehall be missed. " Searching and Intimate." The Langi,tes are now exhausting their extensive vocabulary of vituperation against the new form and those responsible for it, and they are calling heaven and earth to witness that this inquisition is intended sc&Jsiy to humiliate and degrade the poor man and to make his servitude even more intolerable. But Mr. Bruxner reminds them that, in all the forms of application for relief current under the Lang regime, a similar procedure has been followed. The Lang family endowment form contained 30 questions that the mother must answer in writing, e.g., whether any of the children are illegitimate, the names of the illegitimate children, the name of their father. A person knowing the claimant had to answer 13 questions. In the application form for assistance under the head of child welfare, a mother seeking relief when her husband had deserted her bad to answer over 70 questions. Neither Mr. Baddeley nor 4U)g member £lg T gg^ /:i 2!!gl!L nv ?"^

had ever protested against what Mr. Bruxner rightfully termed the searching and intimate nature of these questions. Why, therefore, he indignantly ■ concluded, "these crocodile tears" about the indignity inflicted upon male applicants for food relief by questions of a far less intimate and delicate kind? Of course the answer to fiis question is easy to supply, and it has been given with great emphasis by Mr. Bruxner. "The agitation against the questionnaire," he says, 90 per cent political"; and I believe that the facts and circumstances fully justify this assertion. . The Communists on the one hand and the Langites on the other have seized upon the questionnaire as a splendid pretext for causing ' trouble, and they have deliberately incited those living on the dole to resist the authorities and make the whole matter a trial of strength between Government and the masses. Serious Riots. ! ; '«"T ' Unfortunately these evil influences have already produced disastrous results. Two days ago there was a serious riot outside the Glebe Town Hall, where Communists . and other extremists urged those on the dole to burn their application forms. and resist any attempt to coerce them. The police, x&enaced by a .threatening '. crowd, had to use their batons. Some injuries were Jnfticte4 on both sides, arrests were made, and serious bitterness resulted, whicl* bore fruit in a similar riot in the Bame locality last night. But the gMCvest trouble has arisen in the ,aorthern district, at Newcastle and Cessnock,v where Langism still prevails and Communist propaganda is powerful. There the dole forms have been burned in thousands, meetings have been addressed by incendiary orators urging the workers to issue an ultimatum to the Government threatening to seize food for themselves unless the obnoxious forms are withdrawn. An attempt Ims been made to organise a general strike, fend some of the coal mines have closed down. So threatening, was the situation that a large- body of police was rushed to Cesenock to dfeal with any emergency, and the Langites hav« promptly seized- the opportunity to Mr. Bruxner and his colleagues for provoking the workers and rendering them desperate by attempting to I "dragoon" and "bludgeon" £benx into, J