CONDITION OF UNEMPLOYED

Evening Star, Issue 21641, 9 February 1934, Page 14

CONDITION OF UNEMPLOYED

PUBLIC MEETING OF PROTEST GOVERNMENT POLICY CRITICISED The downstairs portion of the Concert Chamber of the Town Hall was well filled last night on the occasion of a meeting held for the purpose of protesting against the conditions of the unemployed. The mayor (Rev. E. T. Cox), who convened the meeting, presided, and there were with him on the platform representatives of local bodies, the Otago Labour Representation Committee, trades unions, and the unemployed. After listening to a number of speeches the meeting passed the following motion : That this public meeting of citizens of Dunedin and surrounding districts strongly protests against the decision • of the Unemployment Board to deprive unemployed workers over fifty years of age of the right to participate in relief work and to place the said workers on a sustenance scale that will be quite inadequate to meet their reasonable requirements. We protest against the curtailment of supplementary rations for relief workers. We protest also against the proposed task work for relief workers, as we do not think that speed-ing-up methods should be applied to the unemployed. We enter _ our strong protest against the inactivity of the Government to evolve better conditions for the unemployed, and call on it to consider the privations to which they are subjected by the inadequate relief pay, and urge immediate action on the Government’s part to get them restored to industry. An addition was made to the motion asking that equality -of payment be made to town and surburban relief workers. SUBSIDY SCHEMES FAVOURED. The Mayor said the meeting had been convened in order to make a public protest against the conditions under which relief workers were forced to exist—he did not say “to live.” (Hear, hear.) He thought all would agree that the No. 5 scheme had outlived its usefulness. (Hear, hear.) Let them concede that the scheme, when it was instituted, was a genuine attempt to meet an emergency, and as such was welcomed by the community. The dominion at that time was confronted with falling prices and declining revenue—falling prices such as they had not had for a generation. Those who were unemployed could do nothing but submit to the conditions —the conditions of work and the conditions of pay—and with true British pluck they recognised not only that they were in difficulties, but also that the community of which they were a part was in great difficulties too. “ To-day we have reached an era of rising prices—astonishingly rising prices in connection with wool and meat — prices which twelve months ago would have given us a very great deal of encouragement and optimism,” continued the Mayor. “ The time is now ripe for ah adjustment, and I would suggest the best way to make that adjustment is the abolition of the No. scheme.” (Hear, hear.) u I would suggest that this meeting for the most part should consider something constructive.” ■ Mr Cox went on to say that he would commend the Government for the introduction of the No. 10 building subsidy scheme. The latest figures presented bv the Minister of Employment indicated that over 11,000 were engaged in that work who would otherwise lie on relief, in addition to a multitude of tradesmen who were not registered as unemployed. This has cost the board £500.000. That was less than £SO per unemployed worker absorbed. Each of these 11,000 men took home now a week’s wages instead of the relief pittance. Let the scheme be extended to apply to industry in general. . (Applause.) Let them suppose this could reahsoib into industry’ 40,000 relief workers at a cost of £SO each. The expenditure would involve £2,000,000, but every man so absorbed would earn at least twice as much as he ,now got, and in many cases three or four times as. much. The total earnings of the 70,000 relief workers to-day was approximately £4,000,000.* Restore those men to industry and they would earn £10.000,000. The cost to the country would be less, and the men would be engaged in congenial tasks anil be happy.' The effect on the country would be—(l) a revival of industry, (2) the abolition of unemployment, (3) a reduction of the wage tax and its ultimate abolition. The country to-day was suffering from under-consumption of the means of. life and happiness, and not from what some economists would have them believe over-production. The great .army of unemployed had ,not the purchasing power to enable them to procure 'the common necessities of life. " We,,must lift the standard of living before the people will become contented and happy,” added the mayor, “and the events happening in other partis of the world indicate to us that no institutions are safe where the people are not,able to earn a wage that will enable them to live in a-measure of security and comfort.’’ (Applause.) The conditions of the unemployed, he added, were deplorable) For instance) a single girl who represented herself to the AVomen’s Committee as unemployed and without necessary provision in her home, was allowed to go to the relief board rooms for a month of work there and get her , meals and receive 7s-6d-a week to pay for the room. After that month she had to stand down for-a. month. This meant she received on an average 3s Od a week. “ These girls, said the speaker. “ deserve that some protest should go to the Government, and that the citizens of Dunedin recognise that adequate provision is not being made for them.” (Applause. 1

POSITION IN SUBURBAN DISTRICTS. Mr T. H. llarridge, Mayor of West Harbour, said he would represent the position as affecting adjacent boroughs and councils. In his district he had made many efforts to improve the position of men working under No. 5 scheme. Married men in his district with three children received 39s Gd a week for three weeks in a month, and married men with two children 26s 4d, and on those figures it was impossible for them to properly feed and clothe themselves and their families after paying rent. Then their single men received just under 10s for three weeks in the month, those men having mothers to keep or being unfit. Some of the men were returned soldiers, and their treatment was not in accordance with what they were promised when they went to the war. 'They were getting less' than relief workers in the city, who did not have a stand-down week, and he could not see why there should be a differentiation. The position was getting worse, and they did not know where they were getting. AGAINST SUBSIDIES. Mr .1. Robinson, who spoke on behalf of various trade union organisations, said he thought the time had come when the Unemployment Board, or the Government, should do the job the board was set up to do. (Applause.) Personally, he did not think, there was any use m condemning the board, because the board was merely a Government department, composed of Civil Servants, to carry out the policy of the Government! The board had done that ever since it was created, and was undoubtedly subject to political interference. He did not agree with the opinion of the mayor that the subsidy schemes were good things. He thought they should be abolished because of the subsidies given to private interests. (Applause.) It was a scandalous thing that the Government should pay large subsidies to big, wealthy companies. The taxation was levied for the specific purpose of relieving the unemployed, ft was a matter for comment, too, that the Government had not given details in connection with the people to whom subsidies w'ere paid. In the first Unemployment Act there was a provision that the expenditure of the Unemployment Board should be met halfway by a subsidy from the Consolidated Fund. Now they found that the Government, instead of giving a contribution, was using the fund for public works. All the subsidies were given to private interests, and those subsidies, let it be remembered, were obtained from the Is in the £ tax on,wages, including the unemployed themselves. The unemployment figures had gone up alarmingly. At first there were 3,000 or 4,000, today there were 70,000, which was a scandalous thing in a country with the possibilities that New Zealand had. It would be a reasonable it the public were to demand a thorough accounting of the unemployment funds. (Applause.) No one knew where the money was going. The Government had been expending money in all sorts of ways—subsiding farmers, for instance, to the extent of £300,000. It was time there was an investigation. It was time, too, that the board as at present constituted should be dispensed with. (“Hear, hear.”) They were all convinced, he added, of the hardships placed on the unemployed, and they were all convinced that the sooner | they got rid of the Unemployment Board the better for all parties concerned. (Applause.) CITY COUNCIL CRITICISED. Mr Geo. Geddes, representing the unemployed 'workers, said the mayor had stated he hoped the statements would not be destructive. He, however, was in an unfortunate position. He was a slave himself and represented 1 100.000 more slaves in this country. The Government received about £4,000,000 a year for unemployment by a levy on the whole community. He objected to the expenditure of unemployment funds by way of subsidies to people who already had hundreds of thousands of pounds. The fund was intended to be used to feed, clothe, and house the unemployed. The speaker went on to say that the City Council, whatever it claimed, had done absolutely nothing for the unemployed except what had been forced upon it by public opinion. He contended that his speech would be mutilated by the newspapers. The papers and others had tried to keep-Mr-Cox from the mayoral chair, but he had “ uppercutted them all,” and had given the daily papers the first object lesson they had ever had in their lives. (Loud applause.) They had been, told in plain language that public opinion in this country could not be gagged for ever. He added that the City Council had found £58,000, which it did not want otherwise, to build a tunnel, but when the mayor had told the council that it had* funds to give the unemployed two days’ work he had been told that this was .incorrect. He wondered how many more thousands of iiounds would be found by the “ old fossils ” on the City Council. The Mayor stated that he would also make a prophecy. He would predict that when they looked at the paper in the morning they would .find quite .a lengthy report of what he had said and of what Mr Harridge had said, arid that the newspaper would say: “Mr Geddes also spoke.’ - ' CR SILVERSTONE’S OPINIONS. Cr M. Silverstone, who was received with applause, said it had been stated that the unemployed relief workers could not live on what they were given. He would say that the Government never intended that the relief workers should maintain themselves bn what they received The Government knew that human beings were long suffering, especially those of the Anglo-Saxon race. They were not impulsive to action. The time would come, however, when the- endurance of the people would .break down. Then there would be a change—a change for the better. The Government had allowed the Unemployment Board to do its work in its own way.- But the board knew exactly what the Government wanted, and it was carrying out the Government policy without -instructions—it did not need any. If the members of the board did not carry out the wishes

of tho Government they would lost; their jobs ami others would take their places. He did not believe in subsidies. No human being had a right to receive something for nothing, unless lie was sick. (‘‘ Hear, hear.’’) No human being had a right to receive something without rendering an equivalent ' service for it, if he was able. The subsidy had not assisted the needy. The buildings done in New Zealand were mostly for people who would have built anyhow. (“Hear, hear.”) Mr Silverstone condemned the new conditions of work under the No. 5 scheme which required a man to do a certain amount of work every day or a certain sum was deducted from his pay. He regretted that a national protest by the workers within the last few days was not more effective. But they must not lose heart. Time was with them. The majority of the people must win. though it would take some time. “ We will .protest to-night,” lie said, “ and there will bo other meetings of protest, until the time comes when even the capitalist class must give ns an opportunity constitutionally to express our opinions of them.” ‘(Applause.) MOTION OF PROTEST CARRIED. Mr J. W. Munro, M.P., moved the motion of protest as printed above. He said lie . had been telling the working people for the last thirty years that the only way to protest was to put their members into Parliament and let them manage the country on behalf of the majority of the people. That was true democracy. He understood that the meeting was riot a political one, but, how could they protest unless they brought the Government into it and made it a political meeting. Mr Norman Campbell (Port Chalmers), in seconding the motion, said that it the workers wished for relief and wanted to raise themselves from the present impossible position, there was only one way to do it—they must get busy and put representatives in Parliament who would provide living conditions that would make them and their children and their children’s children have a. happier lot than they had had for the last few years in “ God’s Own Country.” (Applause.) At the suggestion of Mr A. Steven (Mosgiel) an addition was made to the motion asking that equality of payment should be made to town and suburban relief workers. The motion, on being put to the meeting, was declared to be carried unanimously. The mayor was accorded a vote of thanks for presiding.