HOME FROM CAMP.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 304, 23 December 1932, Page 5

HOME FROM CAMP.

MANY RELIEF MEN. HOLIDAY STARTS TO-NIGHT. GOVERNMENT PAYS HALF PARE. While numbers of relief workers in camps have taken advantage of the offer of the Unemployment Board to pay half their return fare to enable them to go to their homes for a fortnight, it is hardly possible" to estimate the exact number, said Mr. W. Slaughter, officer in charge of the Labour Department in Auckland. The offer as made by the Government was that the men in camps would he paid for a fortnight's holiday .and that half their return fare to their homes from wherever they were, would also be paid.. In the majority of cases the camps break up to night. The county councils responsible for the camps, added Mr. Slaughter,, simply made out lists for a fortnight's pay, and the "bill," together with the money for fares, was met by the Government. There was no stipulated means of travel. That was left "to the county councils to arrange with the men. In some cases the county councils were paying the other half of the fare, in appreciation of the work done by the men. "Those in the camps are of a good type," said Mr. Slaughter, "and some of them are not taking advantage of the time off. They are seeking work on the neighbouring farms, some haymaking—anything at all—to supplement their earnings."