LECTURER IN ECONOMICS

Feilding Star, Volume 11, Issue 4180, 1 March 1934, Page 5

LECTURER IN ECONOMICS

GOES INTO RELIEF CAMP

TO GAIN KNOWLEDGE (Per Press Association) Christchurch, February 28 To go into a relief camp and spend part of his Holidays working on the roads was the course adopted by Mr George Lawn, lecturer in economics sit Canterbury College, who was formerly a member €>f the Unemployment Committee, in an endeavour to learn at first hand what life in the camps was like. Air Lawn said in an interview today that he found the men of a good type, working reasonably well and taking a pride in doing the job well. The food was excellent and the tents reasonably comfortable. The major fault found by Mr Lawn was the small rate of pay, never exceeding 10s weekly, which was insufficient to keep the men properly clad and provide them with any opportunities of saving enough to enable them to try to seek regular employment. The result was that the men in the camps had little opportunity of being re-absorbed' in industry. His only other complaint was against the method of doing work with the primitive equipment of pick and shovel and barrow. He suggests that, if proper road-making machineiy were supplied, the work would l>e done for a much lower unit cost.