The Hawera Star. FRIDAY, JUNE 19, 1931. NO. 5 SCHEME REVIVED.

Hawera Star, Volume LI, 19 June 1931, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

FRIDAY, JUNE 19, 1931. NO. 5 SCHEME REVIVED.

Delivered every evening by 6 o’clock in Hawera, Manaia, Kaupokonui, Otakaho, Oeo, Pihama. Opunalce, Normanby. Okaiawa Eltnam, Ngaere, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Awatuna, Te Kiri, Maboe, Lowgarth, Manutahi, Kakaramea, Alton, Hurleyville, Patea, Whenuakura, Waverley, Mokoia, Whakamara, Ohangai, Meremere, Fraser Road, and Ararata.

To-dav’s announcement by Cabinet that the No. 5 Unemployment Relief Scheme is to be carried on till Parliament meets will be welcomed by the public no less than by the unemployed and by social workers. It would be a mistake, however, to imagine that the revival of the scheme relieves the public of its responsibilities towards the best deserving of unemployed. Individuals will have their own opinions of the part played by the Government in connection with unemployment; but however much, or little, the Government, can be blamed for timidity and lack of initiative, it can be agreed that the situation which arose as a result of the bankruptcy of the Unemployment Board was not completely an ill-wind. The Government made the general public responsible for making good its promise that no one should be allowed to starve, and in doing that it awakened wide realisation of the needs of the situation. Many members of the public*have learned within the last week for the iirst time that the mere fact that a Government scheme of relief is in operation does not necessarily mean that there is not also a need for the exercise of that humanitarian spirit which always comes to the aid of the distressed in time of emergency. Tt has been learned that when the No. 5 Scheme is operating at its best a married man with three or more children can earn on relief works only an average wage of £l/17/6 a w'eek in four weeks—and that a single man can average only 13/6 a week in a similar period. The community cannot, in the light of that knowledge, blind itself to the need for voluntary relief efforts. The social workers in Hawera will still have need of the assistance of the general public, though their problem has been relieved somewhat by the revival of the Government scheme. It comes as something of a shock, for instance, to learn that this week, while the No. 5 Scheme is still in operation, 179 men, with varying numbers of dependents, are “standing down”—that is, that they have had their throe weeks of partial employment for the month. In a letter published in to-day’s issue the Mayoress, as president of the Women’s National Reserve, tenders thanks to all see) ions of the community for their generous response to the appeal issued at Wednesday night’s public meeting for money, food and clothes. It is heartwarming to find that the humanitarian spirit, stil! survives in such generous measure in these days of more selfcentred living, and it is lo be hoped that the mere fact that the Government has found a temporary way our of a situation which should never have been allowed to develop will not induce a return, on the part of the general public, to a belief that the care of the unemployed section of the community is “somebody else’s” job.