A LEGAL ANOMALY

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 221, 14 August 1930, Page 11

A LEGAL ANOMALY

SEQUEL TO LOCAL ACCIDENT. MR NASH QUESTIONS MINISTER. An anomalous condition in the Child Welfare Act was revealed in the House of Representatives a few days ago by Mr J. A. Nash, M.P., who said he would like some information from tlie Minister of Education on a question concerning the child welfare branch of his Department and an accident that happened a short time previously. It was that of a young man who had lost his life near Palmerston North through a collision with a Main Trunk express when he was riding a' motor cycle. The young man had previously been under the charge of the child welfare branch. After receiving his education he lrad gone to work, and a proportion of his earnings was paid monthly by his employer to the Department. A sum of £6B had accumulated at , the time of his death. The funeral account, which amounted to £24 7s, was sent to tire young man’s brother. Application was made bv the brother to the Department for the amount of the accumulated earnings, but the Department, acting under the existing law, refused to hand it over. He (Mr Nash) had written to the Minister in charge of the Department asking that the Department should at least pay the funeral account. The brother was a working man, with a family, and was not in a position to meet it. The Minister replied that he would be only too glad to comply with the request if he had the pow.er, but the law prevented him from doing so. Was it right, he asked, for the State to keep possession of the deceased’s earnings and leave the man who had carried out the burial to fish for tire amount, due to him Y Though the Government had spent money on the education of deceased, and every care and attention had been shown to him while he was a ward of the State, it was unfair to leave the undertaker unpaid. He asked the Minister to see whether it was not possible to put a vote on the Supplementary Estimates to meet the burial expenses. The Minister for Education (Hon. H. Atmore) stated in reply that there was no power under the Guild Welfare Act to paj _ the money over, but he would see that steps were taken to pay the funeral expenses.