ONEHUNGA RELIEF.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 190, 14 August 1933, Page 8

ONEHUNGA RELIEF.

RESULT OF MEN'S BALLOT.

PRESENT SYSTEM NOT FAVOURED.

An interesting position has arisen at Onehunga over the question of amalgamation with the Metropolitan Relief Committee. When the men employed by the Onehunga Borough Council on relief work under Scheme -'i received their wages at the week-end they were each {riven a ballot paper, and asked to say if they wished the system of relief now obtaining at Onehunga, as administered by the Borough Council, to continue or the depot to be closed and the borough to amalgamate with the Metropolitan Relief Committee.

This step to ascertain the mind of the w r orkers was taken by the Mayor, Mr. E. Morton, in • consequence of correspondence received by the council from the Provincial Unemployed Workers' Association, asking why Onehunga had not affiliated with the city when the original relief committee, consisting of. representatives of all the churches and benevolent institutions was disbanded in favour of such affiliation some months ago. This question was submitted to the Borough Council last Monday night, when the Mayor replied that the proceeds from art unions had provided sufficient funds to cope with the relief of local distress, and that Onehunga could join the Metropolitan Relief Committee only on condition that all moneys in the Council's possession wero first handed over. The council had received the sum of £151 as its share of an art union, and j expected to receive a further £120 from; another art union in the near future.

The reply apparently did not meet with the approval of the relief workers generally, as by 330 to 08 they voted to cancel the present arrangement in favour of joining the Metropolitan Relief Committee.

The matter will he dealt with by the Borough Council to-night in committee, when it will probably be decided whether the relief workers' vote shall be given effect to.