ILL-ADVISED CENSURE

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 144, 16 December 1930, Page 10

ILL-ADVISED CENSURE

(To the Editor.) ■Sir,, —One reads the resolutions of some of the workers' unions ancut the "Wnge-i-cduciag scheme" of the Unemployment Board in their No. 2 scheme with pity. Such outbursts as these are leading persons who have had a great deal of sympathy with the workers and who have always endeavoured to give quid pro quo in so far as wages are concerned to feel a little disgusted. They lose sight of the fact that scheme No. 2 is au urgent measure to provide immediate work. Let me state our case for the benefit of those who cast the unanimous motion of Xawa Flat, and I am sure that the same applied to the great majority of those who have offered work under the scheme referred to. The social service associations of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, of which we are a part, spend approximately £30,000 annually on social service work. We in Wellington expend our proportion of that sum. Notwithstanding the fact that we, too, are suffering from the effects of the slump and at present arc working on an overdraft of some hundred o£ pounds, we felt it our duty to respond to the appeal and give some extra assistance to the unemployed at this time' o£ the year. In consequence we offered to take on six men for a fortnight, and agreed to pay the forman 17s 6d per day and 15s pay the foreman 17s 6d per day and 15s had not been for the subsidy we would have been able to employ only half the number. Through the winter we have given work to the most needy, and have paid them at the rate of 14s per day, so, far from being a "wage reducing scheme, it seems1 to us that it will fulfil the purpose for which it was meant, namely, provide work for a great number who would otherwise have been unemployed. I would lite to say further for the information of those who so unanimously passed the above-mentioned resolution, that in my experience of the Wellington public I have, on behalf of my unemployed clientele, received at all times most sympathetic and generous treatment, but I regret that I cannot say the same of the workers' unions, and could quote cases where work has been refused because raembers, through being unemployed, could not afford to pay their union dues. Thank God that despite the uncharitable utterances of the Tawa Flat branch of the New Zealand Workers' Union, there is a real Christian charity abroad, more especially at this time, and not a "thin veneer" destined to cloud a sinister motive to reduce wages.—l am, etc., G. B. STEPHENSON, Secretary, Presbyterian Social Service Association.