RELIEF WORK.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 175, 9 July 1932, Page 9

RELIEF WORK.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —On reading the report published in the “Tribune” (sth July) by the Hawke’s Bay Rivers Board re subsidising the allocation of funds to the unemployed one finds that it reads incorrectly; as an instance the following extract : —“A request that the Hawke’s Bay Rivers Board give a subsidy to unemployed relief work in order to provide further days’ employment than the days provided by the Unemployment Board.” The request was: “That the County Council, Borough Council, and Rivers Board make up the necessary amount when a short allocation had been received for Hastings from Wellington, whereby the men would receive their full quota of pay and not a day or so short each week as has been the case in the past. For an example take the single men who have received 9/- per week for two successive weeks. How are these men to live decently? Are they not entitled to work that they may live? The single men had their allocation cut at the beginning of the present scheme by being paid 9/- per day (two days per week if the allocation is full) against a married man who is paid 12/6 per day plus one to two days more per week than the single men. “Don’t you think this a fair handicap?” The public must understand that the two, three, and four days allotted to relief workers is not the minimum but the maximum which means that the single men cannot receive above 18/per week for three weeks in every month, but that they can receive under. In fact some weeks they receive nothing. A balance-sheet published recently in thq “Tribune” by the County Council showed an increase in their credit of approximately five figures. The wages of relief men are paid from the relief funds, the employing bodies supply transport, tools, and insurance which they do when employing any labour; therefore, they pay nought for work done by relief labour. Mr Lassen’s motion re damage by floods and earthquakes no doubt is quite correct and would no doubt be taken into consideration by the party concerned as the class of men at present on relief work would not want io benefit by a body whose financial sources are continually at the “beck and call” of uncontrollable powers. To Mr R E. Talbot’s statement I take strong exception, viz.: “That a great deal more employment could be given if it were not for the fact that such large sums of money were used in providing transportation for the unemployed.” If the unemployed are not worth their transportation to any body then why take them at all ? Why not hire labour outside relief labour and pay full time, thereby decreasing the unemployed of Hastings?—Yours etc., GILBERT PRPCE. Hastings, 8/7/32.