Sustenance Pay

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXVI, Issue 158, 19 June 1936, Page 6

Sustenance Pay

(To the Editor.) Sir.—Can I please have space in your column to answer N. M. T. Neilson’s letter, and it is a. “She” who is this time writing the letter. First 1 would tike to ask how many of a family 29/sustenance pay is for and why is a man who is willing to work put on sustenance instead of receiving so many days’ work at 16/- per day, which one hears the relief workers of Havelock North are receiving.

The “She’s” deserve more than the Victoria Cross for carrying on over these past years.of dreadful depression. N. Al. T. Neilson must remember that “she,” as he terms her, has always to Bear the hardest burden. The mother just knows what is needed weekly to keep the homo necessaries going. Jf it be just LT or 10 - per week the husband earns she has to try to make ends meet. Could N. M. T. Neilson pay rent, food, coal, milk, etc., on 29/- per week? It is really desperate when healthy, strong, willing men cannot *e-

cure employment and have to depend on rcliet or sustenance pay. From what I read of “Dog’s Life’s” letter he asked for work, not sustenance pay, and if “she” did make him write the letter she has every right to make her husband ask for work so that more than 29/- per week can bo brought into the home. It is only those who have gone through the hardships on relief pay or no pay at all that realise the awful plight and curse oi unemployment,—Yours etc., “ONE WHO HAS HAD A SHARE.” Hastings, June 17, 1936.