BONUS OF £100,000

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 138, 7 December 1935, Page 10

BONUS OF £100,000

i .UNEMPLOYED BENEFIT

./ CABINET DECISION

j Cabinet decided last evening to make a grant of £100,000 to the unemployed as a special measure of relief for the Christmas season. This is to be in .addition to the sum which had already been granted by the National Government.

, In .announcing Cabinet's decision Hfter.a meeting of just over two hours, the .Prime Minister (the Hon. M. J. Savage) said that Cabinet had decided fo authorise the Minister of Finance (the Hon. W. Nash) and the Minister of Employment (the Hon. H. T. Armstrong) to distribute a maximum of y£lpO,ooo among the unemployed for Christmas. That would be in addition to the sum provided by the previous Government for the payment of a ■Christmas bonus.

Mr. Nash and Mr. Armstrong will have to arrange for the detailed scale ilctrjbution," Mr. Savage said. "Naturally, it will be graduated, and married men with families will receive a larger share than single men. Anomalies are bound to arise in such a hurried payment, but that' cannot be helped. All that matters is that the unemployed will be able to afford some of.<,the decencies of the Christmas season,which have been denied them in recent'years."

Mr. Savage added that so far only the' Christmas bonus for the unemployed had been considered by Cabinet. Ih'e hew Government would face up to' the whole problem of unemployment relief rates and general po.icy early in the- New Year.

The previous Government had decided to grant the unemployed a fortnightfs holiday on full pay and an additional week's pay as a bonus.