BOOTS FOR WORKLESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 134, 9 June 1933, Page 7

BOOTS FOR WORKLESS.

WEARING APPAREL NEXT?

RETAIL TRADE ALARMED. Apprehension that "a serious inroad into the business of our retailers" may be -made if the Unemployment Board is to function as a retailing and distributing organisation is expressed in the "New Zealand Draper, Clothier and Retailer." "Food, shelter, clothing, fuel and light are necessities for all; and there can be no quarrel with the Government, Unemployment Board, charitable aid boards, or other organisations, in their efforts to ease the distress and suffering which must accompany such widespread loss of the means of livelihood," says the journal. "But if these attempts at relief in one direction are accompanied by the creation of further unemployment and distress in another direction, conditions will become worse, and this appears to us as inevitable if the Government plan of retail distribution is to be implemented fully and carried to its logical conclusion." In commenting on the decision to distribute 200,000 pairs of footwear, the journal remarks that "to distribute this huge supply to the unemployed and their families the Unemployment Board must i engage labour, rent depots, and organise proper machinery for checking delivery to the right persons from factory to wearer, and no one with any business experience will suggest that this can be done more efficiently or satisfactorily at less than the offer made by the- retailers, who have all the distributive organisation ready at hand for immediate operation in every area. "If, as is understood, the supply of footwear is to be followed by a Do-minion-wide distribution of clothing and wearing apparel tlie whole question of economical distribution and avoidance of waste is one for .the most serious consideration." The Hawke's Bay Association reported that relief workers had been demanding beds and bedding on similar terms.