UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20929, 20 July 1931, Page 10

UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

LOCAL BODIES' BURDENS. GANGERS AND INSURANCE. EXTRA EXPENDITURE INVOLVED. Handicaps under which local bodies work in absorbing unemployed men under the No. 5 scheme were referred to at the week-end by Mr. W. F. Stilwell, Mayor of Mount Albert. He said the decisions reached from , time to time by the Unemployment Board were most difficult to deal with. Local bodies never knew with certainty how they were placed.

It was understood now that the board did not intend to allow local bodies to utilise as gangers men employed under the No. 5 scheme. This meant that the bodies concerned would have to engage and pay extra gangers. In the case of the Mount Albert borough about 12 of these men would be required, which would entail a very heavy wages bill. In the past it had been the practice to select a number of relief workers as leading hands and pay them an extra 2s a day out of the local funds. <

Local bodies already carried the burden of the relief workers' insurance, which at Mount Albert totalled about £6OO a year. The Government had been asked for relief in this respect. Freedom from such handicaps could bo elaimod with justification. The Government's replies usually were to the effect that local bodies benefited by the employment of men under the No. 5 scheme, but it had to be remembered that the majority of these relief works normally would not have been undertaken. Money for them had to be found out of the general account, since they did not come within the realm of loan expenditure. Local bodies which were trying strenuously to devise means of reducing their rates, or to ensure that their rates would not be increased, were hampered in their endeavours by these added financial burdens.

WELLINGTON'S BLACK LIST.

IMPOSING ON FOOD DEPOTS.

CHECK ON THE PRACTICE.

Those in charge of the food depots in Wellington for the poor and hungry have had to black-list certain applicants, who have been imposing on one or more of the food and clothes-distributing places. As far as can be ascertained, not very much of this sort of thing is going on, but there are instances where imposition has been -practised, and members of one family have been Bupplied at different depots at about the same time.

This practice is being checked as far as possible by an interchange of names and addresses of applicants between the central depot and other organisations. In view, however, of the large numbers who are receiving their daily supplies of food from these sources, it is almost impossible to detect all such cases. Some offenders have been discovered, and their names have been placed on the black list.

In one instance two well-set-up men were supplied with ample provender of various kinds, and being watched, were seen to drive off in a motor-car, presumably their own. The number of the car was taken. A form of check now being practised is to send someone round to the addresses of people supplied with goods to report as to the genuineness or otherwise of the cases. One officer visited 27 homes on To Aro flat last week, and of that number he only considered two to be "doubtful."