ALL OVER THREEPENCE

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 18 September 1934, Page 6

ALL OVER THREEPENCE

Relief Worker’s Inability to Pay Tram Fare NO MONEY TO PAY FINE ‘ ‘ SITUATION INTOLERABLE ’ ’ A young fellow walked into the Central Relief Depot in Christchurch a few days ago and asked for extra rations for his mother for the next two weeks, states “The Times.” He was told they would be provided if there was good reason. To that he replied he was going away for a fortnight and would not be able to get any relief work to help the home in that time. “Where are you going?” he was asked. “For a holiday?” “I’m going to gaol,” he said.

He admitted that he had a ride on a tram and had no 3d with which to pay the fare. He was prosecuted, fine and costs amounted to 35/-, and he had nothing with which to pay, and no means of getting it. The money was found for him somehow, and it -was stated to a reporter that no fewer than 147 similar cases, of men being in danger of gaol because they could not meet the penalty for small civil offences, had been under the notice of the relief authorities in the last 12 months. In those cases something had been done to avert the drastic penalty. One case quoted was that of a man who was fined for selling firewood after hours, and who had to go to gaol because he had to default his fine.

NO CRIMINAL INTENT.

“The situation is serious,” said one welfare worker. “ These men are many of them essentially honest, and their offences are without the slightest criminal intent. In the end they have to go to gaol and herd with real criminals, some of whom are of a revolting type. The trouble is that there is 110 legislative provision for the payment of fines by instalment or for deferring payment. I w r ould not for a moment insinuate that the magistrates or other officers are hard and unsympathetic. The reverse is the case. But the situation, when such men have to go to gaol for 3d, is intolerable. Surely something can be done.”

Another welfare worker took a decidedly modified view. He held that while there were genuine cases of distress in which the gaol penalty was too severe, many of the instances of prison for non-payment of fines deserved little sympathy. “It is a hard position to assess,” he said, “for the genuine cases have to suffer from the actions of people who have no scruple about telling a b ai 'd luck story, hoping that someone else will bear their responsibility for them, when in reality they could pay. There are men who have radios and who treat themselves to tobacco and a glass of beer every now and then, and still raise the cry of distress. Many of the people prosecuted for non-payment of radio licenses are relief workers. There was a case the other day where a mas. who had been fined and who had not been given harsh treatment concerning payment, kept pleading poverty till he was at last assured that he would be gaoled if he did not pay. “ ‘Well,’ he said, pulling a roll of notes out of his pocket, ‘I ,se.e I cannot beat you down,’ and paid there and then.

“Such eases as that cannot but prejudice the chances of sympathy for genuine cases. There certainly are plenty of genuine men, and for them gaol for a trivial offence is worse than drastic.”