FOOD DEMANDED

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 11406, 6 January 1931, Page 5

FOOD DEMANDED

ARMED FARMERS -MARCH ON ' ARKANSAS TOWN

WOMEN AND CHILDREN SAID TO BE DYING

RED CROSS COAIES TO ASSISTANCE

MEN AVANT WORK

IU.P A bv Elec. Tel. Copyright; NEAY YORK, Jan. i.

A report from England, Arkansas, states that prolonged drought that ruined hundreds of central United States farms last summer had a dram, atic sequel when a mob of 500 farmery some armed, marched on the town demanding- food for themselves and their families.

When the mob threatened to break into shops for provisions unless they were supplied without cost from other sources, local, residents sent an appeal to Red Cross headquarters, while Air. George Morris, an attorney, addressed the farmers, assuring them that they would not be permitted to starve, and cautioning them against committing regrettable depredations. Air Morris ""as frequently interrupted by cries that wives and children were actually dying because there was no food. Some shouted: "We are not beggars; we will willingly work if we can get it.” The Red Cross authorised local provision shops to issue a small food allowance to the needy until other arrangements were made. CHANGE IN AMERICAN OUTLOOK. TURNING TO AY ARDS “THE DOLE.” America is changing her outlook towards “the dole”, and instead of commiserating with Great Britain on its unemployment insurance system, now that she has millions of unemployed, thinks that there way be something in Britain’s plan after all. The “New Republic’’ says:—

“The whole history of the current unemployment crisis is typical of improvident, shallow-pated, warm-heart-ed America. For months we attempt to conceal the seriousness of the threat. For months wo pretend, that wo can ignore it, that there is some

magic in ignoring it. “For months we repeat, as a sort of incantation, such words as, ‘the worker would rather have; a job than a dole.’ or ‘the worker wants - a chance to work, not charity.’ . Then conies a time when at last we have to admit that our magic has not succeeded, that our incantation has had no effect on tho reality. Net matter what the worker wants, he has, by the millions, no job- “ Then, in our impulsive way, wo turn to emergency action, we dig into our pockets and give the most ineffective 'form—unplanned, hastily executed charity. There is no longer time to do anything else. And, if past history repeats itself, men will starve and freeze to death in spite of us,, they will die by their own hands; they may even act in ways to impel the authorities to shoot those whom they cannot feed. “There is no adjective sufficiently sharp to characterise the plight in which the American people now finds itself in regard to this evil. AYe can call it intolerable, revolting, inhuman, stupid.. It is a.ll these things, and something more. A large part of it is a direct result of that arid worship of phrase, that superstititious obeisance before mis-applied principle. which has kept us from grasping the most obvious method of relief—compulsory insurance against unemployment.

‘Taulty as this has been in its practice abroad, it at least has for many years prevented any other great industrial nation from suffering the sort of degradation which faces the United States in the winter of 1930-31. It at least has fed the hungry, and housed the cold, and it has done so by foresight and system, largely out of the advance contributions of workmen and employers themselves.

“If America must have readymade phrases in which to do its thinking, we suggest, as the result of the experience which we are now undergoing, the following ritual:

The worker would rather have a job

than insurance: The worker would rather have insurance than charity ; The worker would rather have charity than starve.

“So far, we have acted feebly on the first of these phrases, and somewhat more energetically on the third, but oil the second, which necessarily links them, hardly at all.”

DOLE IN ENGLAND

REGARDED AS NORMAL

PROFITABLE IDLENESS

Speaking of the dole in England. Mr. L. S. Drake, chief traffic iuspecor of Wellington, who hits just returned. said that it was difficult to know where England was heading financially in respect to the dole payments which have reached staggering figures.

“The marvel of it is,” said Air. Drake, “that no one seems to worry about it—it seems to have become the accepted thing, and there it is. Nobody seems to be concerned on how long the people with tho money can pay oift money to give to those without. The position which is highly absurd, has come to be regarded as normal. One laboring man told me that with 'allowances for his wife and family lie got £2 14s a ' cck, out of the dole, but when employed at his work ho only received £1 los a week. Under these circumstances is it any wonder that men are doing their utmost to keep and remain unemployed ? “Then apart from anything else there is the moral effect of getting something for. nothing, and. what it is going to do to English character. In another instance I heard of a man who had been offered work,- but had turned it down as lie had made arrangements to go away for .his .summer holidays—expenses defrayed .by tho dole, of course.

“Is it any reason under these conditions that the Mato' of unemployment continues P You don’t hear much about it at Home. I have heard more about unemployment since _ 1 • t have been back hero than I have in any cquntry I have visited. Even in Australia the people do not seem to be as disturbed as Ve are here. They actually boasted at having raised a £28,000,000* loan, and said that where that;-came from there was plenty more, so why worry?” .o