LABOUR PROTEST

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 99, 28 April 1932, Page 12

LABOUR PROTEST

UNEMPLOYED RELIEF

NEW SCHEME CRITICISED

POSITION OF WOMEN

A protest against the new scheme for unemployment relief which was issued by the Minister in Charge of Unemployment (the Bight Hon. J. G. Coates) last week was . made by the Labour Party in tho House of Representatives yesterday afternoon, when tho Leader of the Opposition (Mr. H. E. Holland) rnovea the adjournment of tho House in order to provide an opportunity of discussing the new rates of relief pay.

Mr. J. McCombs (Labour, Lyttelton) deplored the action of the Minister in giving the statement to the Press before submitting it to Parliament. He approved of the Minister's statement that latitude would be allowed for local conditions. The original unemployment scheme did not include a stand^own week, but it had been inaugurated subsequently. The married man without children and his wife, under the new scale, would be worse off than if they were receiving the oldage pension. Work was being offered at as low as 4d per hour. It was not sufficient to say that the new scheme would absorb all the money available. It would absorb all the money that the Government had chosen to make available under its flat tax scheme. The girl in the factory earning £50 per year paid tho same percentage of tax as the man earning £5000 per year. Under the previous system of taxation the Consolidated Fund, which was provided in part by income tax, paid a subsidy to the Unemployment Fund, and therefore there was then a semblance of graduation, but now the tax was purely a flat one. About 167,000 women were paying the tax ana contributing a big fraction of £1,000,000 to the fund, and yet no provision was being made for them. If provision were made for the women, there would b« 20,000 registered. At-the present time there was no incentive.for the women-to register,^ as there was nothing for them. "SAME OLD SCHEME." Mr. W. E. Parry (Labour, Auckland Central) said there was nothing new in the scheme; it was tne same old scheme, changed only in detail. He suggested that the Minister was endeavouring to., reduce the general daily wage for unskilled labour. The new scale of wages 'had filled tho people with disgust and the unemployed with a feeling of hopelessness. Why not increase the wage according to the value of groceries to be supplied to the unemployed? There was a great deal of disepntent because men had to go to camps in the country districts, and he asked if the Minister intended to continue that policy. Mr. F. Langstono (Labour, Waimarino) said the Government was pursuing a wage-reduction policy, and the statement was tho most staggering that had been made in reference to unemployment. Things were getting so bad in New Zealand that the time would come, before Ministers realised it, when the Government would not be able to pay the salaries of its own servants. The Government could not carry on as it was doing and expect to escape trouble. The people were not going to sit down quietly and «cc their food taken away from them. He' believed that the Government gloated and gloried in tho, distress of the people. Mr. H. Atmore (Independent, Nelson) said that the position of the unemployed had not been improved under the new scheme. It looked like an attempt to create a settled condition of affairs at a lower standard than'before, and it would do nothing to allay the uneasy feeling that existed throughout tho Dominion; in fact, it would intensify that feeling. THE RATE OF PAY. Mr. D. G. Sullivan (Labour, Avon) said that the new scheme had increased the discontent among the relief workers. The people had been called upon to pay a larger tax and make sTgreater sacrifice in order to provide better conditions for those out of work, but after tho money had been found the scale of wages had been reduced. If the wages to be paid were only sustenance, why was it necessary to ask the unemplo3'ed to work the number of days set down? Why could not the men be paid the standard trade union rate of pay? The argument that if trade union rates were paid the men would not seek other work could be ruled out because of the smallness of the amount that would be paid weekly. By its policy' tho Government was causing an immense amount of trouble to the local bodies. The Government could save all the discontent that existed by laying it down that what work was required to be done should, be carried out at standard rates of pay. Such a schemo would give the men the opportunity of finding full-time work, The Government did not seem to realise the number of unemployed women and the sufferings of those women. Mr. H. T. Armstrong (Labour, Christchurch East) said one could well imagine the disappointment felt by the unemployed as a result of the" Minister's statement. They had been entitled to expect that the increased taxation passed by the House would afford them a measure of relief. He could understand the spirit of unrest that was growing amongst the unemployed, for there was a limit to human endurance. It would be difficult to find a more hopeless set of muddlers than the members of the Unemployment Board. The object of the Government appeared to be to drag all the workers down to the level of relief workers, a result that wouia benefit nobody.

Mr. K. Semplo (Labour, "Wellington East) said the people had surrendered to the extra wage tax conditionally on a measure of relief being given the unemployed, but! the Minister's statement did not give the expected relief. He interpreted the Minister's reference to the inadequacy of the funds to provide for a larger scheme as a confession that the people were £2,000,000' underfed, because tho Government was unable to agree to the payment of sustenance. Wo.were becoming accustomed to poverty in New Zealand. Tho amount given to the unemployed was an insult to- them. Mr. Semple made a plea for sustenance for women who paid the unemployment tax; the single girl should at least bo given the same measure of protection as the single man. ■ _• TAPERING OFF POLICY? r;, J\ t A\. Le,? <Labour> Grey Lynn) said that the Government was anxious to shirk a debate on the issue. Apparently the relief workers and their dependants had managed to starve so successfully that the Government considered they could live on less still Perhaps it was part of the' Minister of Finance's tapering off policy. Mr. M. J. Savage (Labour, Auckland west) asked what guarantee there was that the figures quoted would be actually paid. In Victoria a worker received 5s lOd iii kind if he did not receive work, but in New Zealand he did not receive 5s lOd, but a cross-examination. What guarantee was there that the married men with eight children would receive anything extra? Mr. Savage agreed with the Leader of the Opposition thnt the new proposals were worse

than tho old ones. He could not muster any enthusiasm for the objective aimed at by the Government.

Mr. W. Nash (Labour,. Hutt) asked the Minister whether the meagre rates which he had cited were not the cause of the trouble which had arisen to-day. He had been informed that men were being recruited for duty as special constables at 5s a day and their keep in order to keep down men earning 15s per week without keep. The Minister of Justice (the Hon. J. G. Cobbe): "That is absolutely incorrect. ''

Mr. Nash: "I have a letter from a farmer definitely stating that, to his knowledge, the Government is recruiting men as special constables for 5s per day- and their keep. I will give the Minister the name of the man, and he will agree with me when he sees the name that there is something in the statement." He said that when the main Act had been passed the minimum rates of sustenance had been set out, but these rates were not being paid. When the Prime Minister had stated that there should be no pay without work he had not stated that the rate of pay should be reduced.

The Prime Minister: "Do you agree that the unemployed should work for their money?" Mr. Nash: "Yes. The Labour Party has moved a motion to that effect, but the Minister in Charge of Unemployment voted against it." He contended that the payments, made should .at least be equal to the sustenance rates laid down by the original Act. Mr. Coates's reply to the discussion is reported elsewhere in this issue.