Sustenance for Loafers

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21967, 16 December 1936, Page 10

Sustenance for Loafers

The Dunedin magistrate who "wanted to " know " why a fit man was receiving sustenance payments when he could get work asked a question of no small importance. The police officer in charge of the case which prompted it mentioned that the Minister for Employment had given a warning that men who would not go to the country to work would be taken off sustenance, and said that the police would in future act accordingly; and that, perhaps, means the police in Dunedin, or perhaps the police everywhere. The statement is satisfactory, either way, only so far as it goes. What is not satisfactory at all is the distinct implication that, among the 22,000 men on sustenance, there are work-dodgers enough to provoke the Minister's warning; and what is equally unsatisfactory is the further implication that the regulations have been so framed or administered as to tolerate and help the idler who had rather be supported by the State than support himself. Such tolerance is wholly indefensible and its dangers are increased by the introduction of a higher scale of sustenance payments. Few taxpayers, if any, object to a level of payment above mere subsistence; but there are no taxpayers so foolish as to like the idea of paying for the keep of city loafers who could earn their own in the country. The Minister will do well to take his cue from the policeman and make it clear that his warning was serious and that the combing-out will be thorough and immediate.