BREAD, TREACLE, FAT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIII, Issue 430, 22 June 1922, Page 11

BREAD, TREACLE, FAT.

DISTRESS AMONG SOLDIERS

SHOCKING STORIES OF POVERTY

PEOPLE WITHOUT SHELTER

Instances of poverty and suffering among Australian returned soldiers wore brought directly under tho notice of four Federal Parliamentary representatives—Messrs Mahony, West, Riley and Lazzarini—when they paid a visit to the headquarters ol the Returned Soldiers' League in litt street, Sydney, on May loth. The politicians (says tho Sun) saw a long queue of returned men, somo Ol whom were with their wives, watting to relate their tales of hunger and woe. To a newspaper reporter Mr Mahony said: "We were shocked at what we saw. We actually had to push our way through a big crowd of returned men, who find it a difficulty even to live. They can't get work, and it is hard for them to solve tho daily problem of food and shelter." Tho Federal members intend to make immediate representations with tho Minister for Defence, especially in the direction of securing shelter tor about 200 soldiers who sleep in the Domain every night.

ROLL OF POVERTY. Of the callers at league headquarters during the time Federal members were there, the following are typical, as cited in an official minute-:

Single man. Sleeps in tho Domain; not had a square meal for two days; no pension. Married man, two children; all_ live in one room with one bed; rent 7s 6d weekly. Last hot meal on Sunday; live on tea, bread, treacle, fat and sago pudding for child; three months out of work. Married man with two children; little food in home; £4O in debt; furniture mortgaged; ten days since last hot meal; mostly living on bread. Second battalion soldier; waiting for pension since October: out of work five months; earned 2s selling newspapers; three weeks since he had Is meal; no change of clothes; sleeps in the Domain. Married man. Blind in one eye. sight failing in other; lives with wife in fowlhouse, paying 7s rent weekly; with rent in arrears; 12 months out of work, on and off. Married man, wife, and three children, all living in one room, one bed; sometimes hot meal twice a week; mostly exist bread, treacle, and fat; children practically without clothes; returned enteric fever; no pension; expects to be put out anv day. Married man, two children; wife cannot wean baby because no food; in debt; have pawned everything, even war medals and wedding ring. Married man, two children: moat of time live on bread, treacle and fat; last hot meal on Tuesday; baby has broken left arm. Married man, companion accompanies wife on walk from Redfern in case she is confined on the way; no food in house.

SLEEPING ON BEACH. Married man, sleeps with wife on La Perouse beach; wife in bad health, but no food. In a note in these cases the Returned Soldiers' League states:— In addition to providing food for these men and their families, in many instances those living in an outlying suburb have been granted weekly working men's tickets to enable them to travel to the city to look for work. There are many cases where we are buying milk food' for the babies of the unemployed Digger, the man and his wife living on what assistance they receive from the Benevolent Society. There is much distress amongst the single returned soldiers, many of these men are sleeping in the Domain—they posses only what they stand up in—and in many cases this consists of hat, coat, cotton shirt, trousers and boots. Somo of them are existing on one meal a day, which they secure from the Warriors' Friend, consisting of tea and buns, and have not tasted a hot meal with vegetables for weeks.