THE CITY SCHEDULE

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 68, 21 March 1931, Page 10

THE CITY SCHEDULE

FUNDS RUNNING SHORT

"CAN DO NO MOKE"

A meetiug of the executive of the Wellington Unemployment Committee was held yesterday afternoon, Mr. J. I. Goldsmith presiding. There were present: Brigadier Gray, Mr. 1?. D. Cornwall, Captain Galloway, and the secretary, (Mr. Kinsman). The following works, submitted by tho City Council in connection with the Mayor's announced intention of placing a further thousand men in work shortly, wore considered and approved: Wadestown tramway duplication, Abattoirs lovelling, Anderson Park extension, gaol site levelling, Eolleston street reserve, Disley street extension, Wilton road, Mt. Victoria road, Palliser road, Molroso streets, View road, Bussell terrace, Chaytor street, Arlington road, South Karori road, Parkvale road, Shirley street, Main Karori road, Beacon Hill road, Scenic road to Mt. Wakofield, and Wellington Girls' Collego. What was to be done with men who had paid the levy, but wero not capable of doing tho work when it was offered, asked Mr. Goldsmith. It was pointed out that men who were totally unfit were not permitted to pay the levy, and would have to fall back on charitable aid; but it was slated that men had paid the levy who were really unlit to do an ordinary day's work. Mr. Cornwell said that the finances of the board were already being strained to the utmost, and the tendency was for the weekly payments to increase. It was more than probable that the Unemployment Board would shortly either reduce the wages being paid or the number of days work offered. Under such circumstances, it would not consider the case of such men. It would cost the board less to pay them sustenance than to pay for work they could not do. Mr. M. F. Luckie, it was stated, had been asked to approach the Government with a view to the prevention of the arrival of immigrants with less than six months' funds. Brigadier Gray remarked that Australians had been proved to be penniless after being three days in New Zealand. tt was decided to write to the engineers in charge of local body jobs, asking that some special work, such as wood-cutting,, should be set aside to enable men losing a day through wet weather to "make it up. It was stated that some of the single men had people entirely dependent on them, in many cases parents. The position was, however, that the board regarded a single man as single and could not alter its regulations. Mr. Goldsmith suggested that a special form covering the circumstances, and signed by some person responsible for the statement, would assure tho bona fides of such eases, but the opinion of other members of the executive was that the board's resources were so strained already that it could do no more. It was considered that the rule requiring six months' residence in Now Zealand, in the case of a man who was born in Wellington, and had lived there for 34 years but who had spent the last four years in Australia and had just returned to Wellington, should not be_ enforced. It was alleged that the naluro of the employment stated in one recent case under No. 5 scheme was "cleaning up and gardening," but it was found that the employee, a painter by trade, had painted two houses for tho subsidised employer. The latter had made the wages up to award rates, but it was felt that, in addition to the refund of the Government subsidy, the case was one for inquiry.