'ACUTE DISTRESS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 121, 22 May 1926, Page 6

'ACUTE DISTRESS

NO WORK AND NO MONEY

INCREASING CALL ON RELIEF FUNDS.

(By Telegraph.) (Special to "The Evening Post.")

AUCKLAND, This Day.

The Auckland Hospital Board is finding that the call upon its relief funds is increasing at a rapid rate. The board sat on Thursday to consider applications, and before the day was out 240 names were on the Belief Committee's list. "When the full committee met to consider the cases which, came before it, the list was exactly twice as long as any previous list which the committee has had to deal with. The committee sat till well after dark,-and then adjourned and resumed next morning.

Many of those getting relief had no hesitation in saying what had been done for them. Not a few were dissatisfied, and wanted a supply of meat in their ration allowance. It had to be explained that only old people were allowed meat, and usually on the recommendation of the board's doctor. The chairman, with a good deal of tact, had to explain that the resources at the board's command would not allow 'of rent allowances. Several wanted their allowances doubled, and seemed disappointed when the request was refused.

Quite a number of men said they were content with an allowance at some of the lodging houses, with bed and two meals a day, till something turned up. So many young able-bodied men came forward for relief that the committee requested the chairman to telegraph to the Prime Minister asking for a special grant for meeting the demands till some reproductive work in the national interest was found for men who insistently said that it was not charity but work they wanted.

The drain that certain families are on the relief funds was shown in one ease where the father of a largo family had contracted a severe illness which prevented him from working, and in five years over, A 650 had been given in food, rent, coal, milk; and dental and medical treatment. It was a case of sheer misfortune, and those were cases which the board was compelled to help till the family reached an age when, they could earn sufficient to keep the home. The worst cases of all were those in which it was reported that whole families, father and mother, boys and girls, had to' live under the most cramped conditions in one or two rooms, and pay very high rents for very little convenience. It was complained that as soon as some landlords knew there were children a considerable addition was made to the rent. 'No one seemed to want to )et'houses where there were children. Other cases came under review where the landlord had been very considerate to his tenants and had treated them well.

At the conclusion of the meeting it was agreed that nothing would solve the present trouble of destitution and want but an effort on the part of the Government to supply work to those who were so sadly in need of it.