THE CAMP SCHEME

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 21, 25 July 1933, Page 10

THE CAMP SCHEME

JUDGE'S EE3IAEKS

REPLY BY OBJECTORS • • /

In a statement to "The Post" today the secretary of the National Union of "Unemployed made, the following comment upon a remark made by. • Mr. Justice Reed in the Supremo Court to the effect that those who deter men from going into camp are assisting to manufacture criminals:—----"It is with much regret that we observe the incursion into the political arena, of a learned Judge. "Mr. Justice Reed, as reported in yesterday's 'Post,' states:— A very grave responsibility rests upon those people—some no doubt acting upon what they conceive to be a matter of principle—who actively deter men from going nito camps. They cannot appreciate surely that by doing this, they are assisting to manufacture criminals. "Every responsible citizen and body of citizens in New Zealand must sincerely deplore the' prevalence of crime and endeavour to rembve this stain from our social fabric. The Judiciary are specially qualified to ascertain the causes of crime, and the National Union of Unemployed has the greatest respect for the wisdom and ' justice of our learned Judges, but the above invasion of a province alien to the usual detached impartiality of, our administrators of the. country's law is, in our opinion, unwarranted. "Mr. Justice Reed's statement can bo construed as including all who are opposed to the Unemployment Board's camp schemes. Many others besides the unemployed workers and their organisations —the clergy, business and professional men, members of local bodies,, the great majority of employed workers —are. definitely opposed to the camp schemes. , "There is no written law to say that men shall go into camp when ordered to do so. Mr. Justice Reed apparently assumes that the camp schemes are morally justifiable. This premise, like any other, can form the base upon which excellent,reasoning may be built, but if the base be erroneous, the resultant reasoning is erroneous. "When a Government or board institutes a scheme whereby men must accept camp work, or the alternative of starvation, can it b? suggested that the critic of the scheme has any connection with its manufacture? "The National Union of Unemployed and a very great body of citizens in all sections of the community object to the camp scheme because of its compulsory feature, and also on' economic grounds. To offer a man, married or single, the alternative of camp life or deprivation of work, to cut him off from every avenue of employment under the State scheme of relief,"is definitely to institute compulsory labour. This is the chief reason for the opposition to camp schemes by the National Union of Unemployed and by those many •others, individuals and organisations, who have joined in voicing a general protest."