NEW POLICY ASSAILED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 6, 8 January 1934, Page 8

NEW POLICY ASSAILED.

"HALF-PAY WITHOUT WORK."

UNION SECRETARY'S VIEW.

The n-jw policy was described as "half-pay without work" by Mr. D. MeLoughliii, secretary of the National Union of Unemployed, in a statement to the Wellington "Evening Post." "The official reason for placing men of 50 and over on 'sustenance , is 'the increasing- difficulty of finding work for men suitable only for light work, particularly elderly men, , " stated Mr. McLoughlin. ''The inference contained in this is that men of 50 and over are 'suitable only for light work,' an assertion which cannot be proved in fact, and as false in relation to the abilities of most men of 50, as the term 'sustenance' is to truth, because, in the latter s case 'sustenance , is 'that which sustains,' and the official mind has yet to find an intelligent reason for describing a 40 per cent reduction in the already inadequate pittance as 'susteuance.. This tendency to base reasoning upon false promisee is characteristic of the entire policy of the Unemployment Board. The base of this policy of enforcing 40 per cent and S(J per cent reductions upon men who "'cannot be placed in work is found in the Government's oft-repeated catch phraee, 'No pay without work.' "Interpreted by the board it is approximately 'liaif-pay without work, , and the moral and physical consequences of reducing men and' their families to starvation fare are callously ignored, and yet Mr. Jessep has publicly stated that the board's function is to allot the allowance from the fund to each applicant for relief 'according to the measure of distress.' If this were true, 40 per cent reductions, because 'of the difficulty, of finding work,' would never be known. According to the 'measure of distress , in straightforward practice would tend to increase the allowance in ratio to increased distress, but of course the board is notorious for saying one tiling and doing the opposite. It is neittier just nor necessary to impose starvation rates because of any given reason, whilst we are assured by the Minister of Employment that the fund is in 'a healthy condition.' While the families intended to be relieved from the fund are in want and distress, it is highly Jin in oral and unjust to allow financial corporations whose millions are embarrassing them to receive subsidies from the fund. We definitely assert without fear of contradiction that such subsidies are totally at variance with the objects for which the fund was intended. It ie not too late yet for the Government and board to retrieve their errors, and to do so would not*imply weakness of character, but the reverse.

"If determined continuance and intensification of injustice is to be the administration's policy, then outraged humanity will be driven to seek relief in many anti-social manifestations, as the history of men and nations abundantly proves."