BRITISH COALFIELDS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 141, 18 December 1928, Page 10

BRITISH COALFIELDS

RELIEF OF DISTRESS GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES British Official Wirelesi. (Received 18tb December, 1 p.m.) RUGBY, 17th December. The Lord Mayor of London's fund for the relief of distress in mining areas now exceeds £155,000. The Lord Mayor's fund is the largest of many that are being subscribed to,.and throughout the country organisations are also engaged in collecting clothing, foodstuffs, and other,gifts in kind. The Prime Minister stated in the House of Commons to-day that the Government is not opposed to asking Parliament to authorise certain measures to deal with the present emergency in distressed mining areas. It was very important that these measures should be considered in addition to the policy which the Government had already initiated and.waa resolved to pursue. Apart altogether from the heavy cost of normal social services, including unemployment insurance, school medical services, and maternity and child welfare, and, in addition to the proposals for the relief of industry from local taxation, the special provisions made by Parliament for assistance of unemployed generally during the current financial year amounted to £1,700,000 over and above the Budget estimates. The special measures which the Government would now ask Parliament to, pass were the auth-oi-ii» to grant to the Lord Mayor's Fund £1 for every £1 received in voluntary subscription, and to make an immediate grant of £150,000 to the fund as an equivalent of the money already subscribed to the fund.