THE BUDGET

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21256, 30 August 1934, Page 13

THE BUDGET

p. Mir, BunoiJ or iuk Sir, - —L notice that the comments of Mr Harry It. Best in your issue of today, on the remarks of Mr J. Mawson Stewart, about, the partial restoration o£ cuts in certain pensions* ana Ji and salaries of the government employees, will, he considers, be endorsed by all reasonable people. According to his views the reasonable people will be those directly benefited. people who right through the hard times have been in constant <Tnploymcnt and receiving a livinfc wage,' and the "unreasonable' people

will be the unemployed, whose plight CV -ur y reasonable persons knows. V.i m '*■ have been more "rea- i sonable if all this surplus money had ■ been used to help those who have ■ -ii, suffer personally, and put up with no end of hardships all through'? 1 vo n °t noticed any move towards" : increasing the wages of those who are : surviving in the different camps, etc., : and I would also suggest to the station 1 wners that if possible during shear- 1 >ng, they might endeavour to give 1 the shed work to some of the men who have spent most of their time in the camps. It would certainly give them a brighter outlook on life if only temporarily. I have two men , now engaged from one of the camp 3 ior the coming shearing.—Yours, etc., EMPLOYER. August 27, 1034. TO Tins EDITOR or THE PIUS 3. Sir, —Noticing from your corres- : pondence columns that there seems to • be a trend of opinion against the , recent reduction in unemployment taxation, may I be allowed please to state my emphatic approval of this measure of the Government? The protests appear to me to come from the business section of the commun- j ity, and I have tried to see why this 1 section Is so emphatic. Is it because, (a) they expect that the unemployed, with more money to spend, will increase their various business incomes? or (b) because they I feel genuine sorrow for the plight of these unfortunate men? If (a), surely their reasoning is fallacious, as the incomes of all of us in work will now be increased and we, shall have more money to spend on our business friends. If (b), then let the business men agitate, and agitate strongly, for the lot •of the unemployed to bo improved by putting them on a higher rate of sustenance pay, which we can only do by abolishing the excessive overhead costs, of the present useless system of works on which we see the unemployed everywhere engaged. Let us favour sustenance, and away with the 5A scheme and its utter futility. And, speaking on broadly general lines, surely the Government is right in relieving a little our present crushing load of taxation.—Yours, etc., A SMALL PROFESSIONAL MAN. August 29, 1034.