PAYMENT OF SUBSIDIES

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 58, 6 September 1934, Page 12

PAYMENT OF SUBSIDIES

BIG LAKDOWNEES

- MR. SEMPLE'S PROTEST

The granting of subsidies from the Unemployment Fund to. big landowners, thus reducing the amount of money available for 'relief allocations, was criticised by Mr.. B. Semple (Labour, Wellington East) in the House of Bepresentatiyes last evening.

Mr. Semple said that lie wanted again to refer to Mr. T. A. Duncan, who, he had previously stated, had received unemployment subsidies. In all, Mr. Duncan had mortgages totalling £316,000. The Minister of Finance (the Bt. Hon. J. G..Coates): They are all financing, farmers, every one. .■'■■■ - Mr. Semple: He is not financing them for the. benefit of his health. Mr. Coates: If you can find a mortgagee in this country who can live up to Tom Duncan you are lucky. Mr. Semple said that he had no quarrel with Mr. Duncan. • Mr. Coates: He is financing otherpeople.. Mr. Semple: But ho is getting his interest. ■ Mr. Coates: How do you know? Mr. .Semple said'he must have had the original intention of doing so. Mr. Coates: He invested the money to help his old friends; that is the long arid the short of it. Mr. Semple: He is too good to live, he shouldn't be here; the right honourable gentleman is stretching it a bit. The Minister of Justice (the Hon. J. 6. Cobbe): He has settled more men on the land than any. other man in New Zealand. . " . . . ;., ■'''~ . : Mr. Semple said he .was not complaining about that. But here was a man whose cheque from the Gear Company ran into between £50,000 and ££0,000, yet he got relief out of the Unemployment, Fund, and he got/the benefit of the exchange rate. He was not suggesting that all the mortgages were sound today. Mr. Duncan paid the same unemployment tax- as the ordinary individual—though he paid more because his income was more—-but the tax did not hit him as hai'das it hit the man on the bottom of the ladder. In addition, he got a subsidy, Mr. Coates': Does he get the subsidy or does the mortgagor? ; Mr. Semple: The work done on his estates makes his mortgage sounder at the expense of the community. I am objecting to the money being takeii out of' the Unemployment Fund as it reduces the allocations for the men, women, and children. The more tliatis given for concerns like the Prudential Assurance Company, the less there is for the workers. The Prime Minister (the lit. Hon. G. W. Forbes): The more employment you provide. The subject was then dropped.