UNEMPLOYED RELIEF

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 155, 28 March 1932, Page 8

UNEMPLOYED RELIEF

Opposition to New Scheme CAMPS DECLARED “BLACK” More than 2000 people, it is said, assembled in the Basin Reserve yesterday afternoon to hear delegates from various parts of New Zealand, who are in Wellington attending a conference convened by the Unemployed Workers’ Movement, speak on the new relief scheme and the unemployment tax. Mr. T. Kelly who was in the chair, said that there were 52 delegates representing 48 branches attending the conference, which had decided that all delegates would leave for their respective centres united to fight under one banner —the U.W.M; Delegates who had visited some of the relief camps, spoke of the conditions and emphatically condemned them. The general policy of the new relief schemes was dealt with, speakers urging their hearers to organise to resist the attacks of the Government. The conference had declared the relief camps “black” and a plan of action was now being prepared in order to carry the policy into effect. The following resolution was carried ; —“That, this mass meeting of Wellington employed and unemployed pledge themselves to assist, the national Unemployed Workers’ Movement in any action it takes against the conditions that the Government would try and force upon them.”

TWO RESOLUTIONS Storemen and Packers Resolutions regarding the report of the Economic Committee and the Unemployment Bill were carried at the conference of the Storemen and Packers’ Federation ou Saturday, over which Mr. J. Tucker presided. The resolutions were as follow: — “That this conference views with alarm and emphatically protests against the proposal contained in the recent report of the Economy Committee in connection with education, and suggested to Parliament, which would, if accepted, practically force many students in our training colleges to give up their studies, thereby ruining their careers.” "That this conference enters an emphatic protest against, the Unemployment Bill now before Parliament, the. system of taxation being wrong in principle aud incidence, and means taxing by a process of a flat tax the workers employed, thereby providing the unemployed worker with employment. We deprecate the proposal to turn legitimate work which should be paid award rates into relief work and consider that removing the functions of the charitable aid board Io Government administration will force men at the point, of starvation into slave camps. We claim a decent living wage for relief workers, male and female. Further, we view with disgust the contemptible action of I he Government through its Unemployment Board forcing starving men to go out into the country to work for 37/6 a week, out of which they have to support themselves and their wives and families and pay rent.”