RELIEF AND WORK.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 285, 1 December 1936, Page 9

RELIEF AND WORK.

NEW SUSTENANCE. COMPARISON OF SCALES. SHORTAGE OF FARM LABOUR. New sustenance rates providing for •weekly increases of 3/ and 6/ for single and married men respectively became operative yesterday. The new rates have considerably reduced the margin between sustenance and relief work payments. A single man gets only 1/ extra above the sustenance allowance if he is on relief work, and in all the other cases the difference is only 3/6. The following table shows the former and the revised scales for sustenance:— Old. New. Single men 17/ 20/ Married, with wife only . 20/ 35/ Married, with one child . 3.3/ 30/ Married, two children .. 37/ 43/ Married, three children .. 41/ 47/ Married, four children . . 45/ 51/ Married, five children . . 40/ 55/ Married, six children .. . 53/ 50/ Married, -seven or more children 57/ 63/ Mount Eden Mayor's View. "The whole thing is wrong in principle," said Mr. T. McNab, Mayor of Mount Eden, in commenting this morning on sustenance rates. "There should not be any sustenance for single men while there is work in the country. I have just been into the country, and farmers cannot fret any labour to cut their hay. Around Matamata the women and children are cutting the ensilage as the labour problem is so acute. The fact that the sustenance rates are nearly as high as the rates for actual relief work does not matter to us in town, as there is little relief on, but the country is being ruined.''

There are several hundred men on relief work under Scheme 5 in Auckland City at present, several hundreds on full-time subsidised works, and several thousands on sustenance.