Relief Work and Idlers

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXV, Issue 157, 19 June 1935, Page 8

Relief Work and Idlers

(To the Editor). Sir, —Do I understand that at the last meeting of the Hastings Retailers’ Association the shopkeepers viewed with alarm the continued diminution of the purchasing power? And further that they have reason to resent the suggested increase of the relief workers’ pay, as it might prove detrimental to those not yet on relief who are still employed? Then there is talk of making the relief workers self-supporting, by growing sugar beet and soya beans on small farms, etc., etc. One of the first objections is that such a measure would not be fair to those citizens not yet on relief. Supposing that the Relief Workers should be successfully organised into a “self-supporting unit,” the question arises as to whether the “unit” should be allowed to compete in the open market with the rest of the citizens. Then again has the government any right to aid a movement which in the end might absorb all its competitors and perhaps the government itself? Further would it not be very ungrateful for the relief workers to try to crowd out the people who have been supporting them? Again, I ask is it fair that the government should encourage the relief worker to grow or make what they want instead of letting the government buy it from the people who are not yet on relief? My answer to the above, questions is that the relief workers are all citizens equal in the sight of God and the government as all other citizens not yet on relief. The population now employed have no more right to be working than that part known as relief workers. If free competition is ethical for the general population, it is ethical for a part of the population. If it was right for the general population by competition to pen off a part of itself under shameful restrictions, it is right for that part to absorb the rest by economic pressure.

If the industrialization of relief workers does not add one penny to the present relief grants, it cannot be called a diseriinitiating ,aet against the general population which was content to allow this much money to keep the relief workers in idleness. If the industrialization reduces the necessity for grants it is more than allowable if it makes some of the relief workers finally independant and the general population must either accept it or consent to support the relief workers, permanently and comfortably with no restrictions against their getting married and enjoying life to the full. As for the ungratefulness, that is

settled if we will only admit that callousness of the general population, or their masters, is what put the relief workers in their present position, and that all relief grants were made of necessity, not kindness. I owo nothing to any man who forces me and tny class to live in disciplined idleness,

especially if he will not allow mo to partake of all God’s good gifts, that is a home, the joys of family life and all that it means. In supplying blankets, boots, etc., to the relief workers the government is giving back money which it took in taxes. Finally the people should have the right “to rid itself of supporting idlers” and in turn the “Idlers” should have the right to work at the same occupation as their supporters.—Yours etc., JACK WEBSTER. June 17 1935.