RELIEF IN AUCKLAND

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21296, 24 September 1932, Page 14

RELIEF IN AUCKLAND

CRITICISM OF COMMITTEE REV. JASPER CALDER'S VIEWS ATTITUDE NOT SUPPORTED - Claiming that the Auckland Metropolitan Unemployment Relief Committee had failed to carry out the task that it set out to do and for. that reason could- not bo called a success, the Rev. Jasper Calder, Anglican City Missionor, in a statement yesterday, said the committee had hampered the operations of the social organisations without giving the service that would otherwise have been available. A similar statement previously made by Mr. Calder was criticised by the Rev. T. Halliday and Major Holmes at the meeting of the committee this week, both denying that the social workers had suffered as the result oMhe existence of the committee, and saying that good work had been done by the committee. In his statement yesterday, Mr. Calder said ho had keenly supported the committee at the outset, as it had been understood that it would deal with all relief that arose from unemployment. It had been agreed that the social workers would not collect funds for unemployment relief as the campaign for funds for the committee was being undertaken. Although the committee set out to deal with unemployment, for almost three months nothing was done for the unemployed, and for the first month, when it did function, nothing had been done for married men with families. During all this time the social workers had been debarred from collecting funds for unemployment relief, but they still had to carry the burden. The committee, on the other hand, had been getting the money, but had not been giving the required help. Mr. Calder said he had sent dozen and dozens of deserving cases to the committee's depot for assistance, but they had returned after failing to get any help. There was to be a meeting of the Auckland Social Workers Association next Wednesday, and the Mayor had been invited to attend, added Mr. Calder. When the statement was referred to the Mayor, Mr. G. W. Hutchison, who is chairman of the Metropolitan Unemployment Relief Committee, he said that as the sole object of his association with the committee was to help the unemployed, and as the discussion which had been opened by the Rev. Jasper Calder was not likely to further that object, he did not propose to take any part in the discussion. "The social organisations and the committee are working amicably together," said Mr. Halliday, when the position was referred to him. He expressed the view that the committee was supplementary to the social organisations, and said that 'while the committee dealt with unemployed men and their families, the social organisations attended to hundreds of distressed families, many of which had no breadwinner at all. "I beliove that the Mayor's committee is doing excellent work," said Major Holmes, of the Salvation Army. "The various social organisations confine their work to the city only, whereas the Metropolitan Committee helps men in country camps, besides men in the city. I do not think the work of the Salvation Army has suffered because of the operations of the Mayor's committee. In fact, most of the social organisations have been working together on the committee, and I know that the Mayor will do everything possible for the social organisations. If relief is given and the work is done, what does it matter who gives,the relief?"