ADMINISTRATION OF RELIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21727, 16 February 1934, Page 10

ADMINISTRATION OF RELIEF

It- is becoming more and more apparent that any tapering off of unemployment relief will have resistance not only from the section of the community which has a political end to serve, but also from local authorities which, through relief systems, arc creating cheap assets. Within the last few days messages from the province have supplied fairly definite proof of the fact that the local bodies concerned are now relying upon relief labour for what ought to be normal work paid for at standard rates. The authorities in question are not exceptional in this connection. Throughout New Zealand a vast amount of public work is being performed with substantial aid from the Unemployment Fund. The least benefit is obtained by the cities and larger towns, where, on account of the heavy weight of unemployed, elaborate schemes have had to be devised under the No. 5 plan, most of them being merely a pretext for the avoidance of dole aid. Rarely have such jobs been imperative. They have not displaced workers entitled to full rates of pay. But the farther the system of relief extends into the country the greater becomes the tendency to apply it to essential work. Many county councils have added greatly to their metalled road mileage because relief labour was available. And up to a point this has been wise relief. It has created public assets and helped national development. But tlu l moment there appears among local authorities a spirit of resistance against decisions of the Unemployment Board to transfer relief men from their areas, it becomes abundantly clear that relief is there being accepted as a permanency, as a means of assisting the ratepayer over the economic stile. This is not the purpose of relief taxation. Its purpose is to provide sustenance to men in an emergency. The moment itdevelops into a vested interest in the slightest degree it is misused and immediately becomes the means of perpetuating the unemployment problem, if not enlarging it. It has been asserted in regard to the building subsidies that the benefit has not always gone to the most deserving. It should be emphasised that no one is deserving in the sense of getting part of his taxation back. Benefit to the individual is not desirable, though often unavoidable, and benefit to a local authority should never be regarded as a right.