UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

Greymouth Evening Star, 31 March 1930, Page 10

UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

REPLY TO CRITICISM.

[pee press association.] HAMILTON, March 30. A reply to Mr. Polson, M.P’s recent strictures upon the system work adopted by the Governmnt, was made by the Minister of Public Woiks to a Waikato Times reporter during tSe course of a tour of the Raglan elec‘"ml Ransom said that instructions had been given to the engineers i 1 , wherever possible, men were to be employed on piecework, and this applied paXularly to the relief workers Wherever it was P° sslb J 6 ?° ta a price, this was done, but there were many works where the conditions were so varied that it was almost impossible to fix a price for Piecework. In addition, in acordance with the Government’s instructions, the men were placed on day work for a certain time, if they were inexperienced, in order to enable them to become accustomed to work in which, perhaps, they had never been engaged before. The men, said the Minister, were allowed ten minutes each morning and afternoon for “smoko,” whether they were on day work or piece work. This, no doubt, was the “time off for morning and afternoon tea” to which Mr. Polson had referred . No such thing as “killing time” was allowed if detected. With regard to a statement made that metal which had been obtained by Dalmatians cost 16s a yard, and that metal obtained by another party, composed of unemployed, had cost £2 10s per yard, Mr. Ransom said it was not possible to investigate, this, unless particulars were given as to time and place. He thought that it was highly improbable that this statement was correct.

Touching on Mr. Polson’s definite statement that a very considerable number of men were on nothing but day work, the Minister quoted figures which showed that for Whangarei and Auckland districts there were 1388 relief workers on co-operative contract, whereas there were only seventy-nine relief workers on day work. All districts were not equally as satisfactory. The average for New Zealand was 66 per cent, on co-operative contract and 34 per cent, on day work. The percentage of relief workers on co-opera-tive contract would have been .much greater but fox* the men employed on the restoration of the earthquake damage in the Nelson and Greymouth districts, where several hundred men were engaged in removing slips and other than by day labour. In the Stratford district, which perhaps Mr. Polson had in mind, there were 99 relief workers on day work and 227 on co-opera-tive contract.

STATE ENTERPRISE BLAMED. VANCOUVER, March 30. Mr. Guy W. Holcombe, Magistrate at Port Adelaide, in an interview, declared that unemployment, as an economic condition in Australia, was extremely bad. - He said: “Our States have entered into nlany phases of business in competition with private capital with, in many cases, little success. Deficits were produced by the State butcheries and bakeries. Men who would have been weede out for inefficiency in private business, have been allowed to continue in Government positions.” Holcombe blamed automobiles for the State railway deficit. MR. J. H. THOMAS’S RESIGNATION LONDON, March 28. Differences of opinion in the Labour Party regarding the methods of dealing with unemployment are reported to be causing concern. His friends declare that Mr. J. H. Thomas (Unemployment Minister) is the victim of treachery in the Party, supplemented by intrigues in the innei’ circles of the Ministers, and that Mr. Thomas is ready to resign as a protest against the action that has been taken. Some aver that Mr. Thomas’s resignation has already been tendered. There is also a curious persistency of a rumour connecting Mr. Thomas’s name with the Governor-Generalship of Australia, despite his denials.