NEW RELIEF SCHEME.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 109, 11 May 1933, Page 11

NEW RELIEF SCHEME.

IN PLACE OF DOLE. N.S.W. EXPERIMENT BEGUN. INCREASE IN EARNINGS. (From Qur Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, May 5. The Minister of Labour has stated that for some time past various local bodies and industrial organisations— including representatives of the unemployed—have been suggesting that the Government should attempt to establish a system of relief which would include payment for work done, in addition to the dole. This week a scheme has been put into operation which attempts to carry this idea into effect. A scale of hours and wages has been drawn up and will be tried experimentally for three months in certain selected districts. On this scale a single man now on the dole and without occupation will work six hours a week and receive £>/4i, as against the rations ho now receives, costing 5/4 A a week. A married man with one child will be required to work 13 hours for £1 0/5, as against his dole of 13/31; and so the scale of work rises up to 22 hours a week for the married mail with six children — wages £1 14/3; and 24 hours a week for the married man with seven children — wages £1 17/5 a week. In every case the worker will be considerably better off than under the dole—the difference ranging from 4/ increase for six hours' work in the case of single men, to 12/3 increase for 24 hours' work in the case of married men with seven children. Advantages of Scheme. There are two obvioue advantages about the scheme. In the first place it gives the State a chance of increasing the amount of the relief that it is now extending to the unemployed, who will bo materially much better off than bafore, at the expenditure of a little physical energy. In the second place, it will help to counteract the demoralising effects of unemployment, and the degrading influences of a dole secured by the wage earner without any corresponding effort or sacrifice

The principles on which the new system is based are thus unimpeachable. The objection that the rate of payment is extremely low is met by Mr. Stevens' assurance that it is the utmost that the Government can do at present. The expenditure on food relief is still far greater than most people imagine. During the year which closed in June, 1032, under the Lang regime, the approximate amount spent by the N.S.W. Government in food relief was £5,300,000, there being then _ about 375,000 persons on the dole. This year there are still about 250,000 persons in the State "actually in receipt of food relief," and by the end of this financial year (June, 1933) expenditure on food relief will have totalled £3,000,000 for twelve months. The burden is growing lighter, but the State lias to struggle hard to support it; and this is no time to complain about a rate of payment as inadequate, when it represents, in every case, a 50 to 75 per cent increase on the amount now received by each unemployed worker in the form of dole. Trades Hall's Complaint. The new system has been tried experimentally in Sutherland shire, where a ri&mber of the unemployed were on "relief" works. Mr. Stevens "has visited the relief, works and has publicly stated that the men there all expressed to him their satisfaction with the new scheme, not one complaint being made. Most of the suburban councils have already recorded their enthusiastic approval of the scheme, and there is no news of any active resentment on the part of the workers concerned. But a remarkable pronouncement has been issued from the Trades Hall, in which Mr. Graves, secretary of the A.L.P., and right-hand man to Mr. Jock Garden, claims that the new form of relief is "demoralising" because it reduces the workers to "a condition worse than slavery." Apparently it is not demoralising to accept the dole —and the Graves-Garden junta has encouraged the unemployed to demand double the old relief allowance— but it is demoralising to work for it. However, Mr. Dunningham, Minister of Labour, and Mr. Stevens have explained that the rate of pay for hours worked is to be the established basic wage.