ILLEGAL EARNINGS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22961, 12 February 1938, Page 16

ILLEGAL EARNINGS

NO BAR TO SUSTENANCE CONVICTED MEN ELIGIBLE [BY TELEGRAPH—OWN COItRKSPONDKNr] CHKISTCHURCH, Friday , Characterising it as being opposed to every consideration of fair play and justice, Mr. H. 35. Herring, M.P. for Mid-Canterbury, commented in an interview in Ashburton -on the fact that men convicted of selling liquor illegally and of bookmaking are permitted to register as unemployed and receive payments of sustenance. It was common knowledge, Mr. Herring added, that some men had been before the Court and had been convicted and fined heavily for the manufacture or sale of intoxicants outside the law. They had been able to pay these fines, and without great difficulty from all indications, yet they had been able to make application for further sustenance and receive it.

"It is a most extraordinary situation to my mind, completely illogical and unfair, yet as the law stands quite in order," said Mr. Herring. "The certifying officer testified to his helplessness in the situation, pointing out that a sustenance applicant was not obliged to disclose earnings obtained illegally, and that on figures presented ho had no option but to pay out." Mr. Herring said he had written to tho Attorney-General about tho matter and also to the Minister of Labour, only to be given confirmation of this opinion. People who bad to work hard to pay the levy and the employment tax justifiably resented the position, he said, arid they had bis complete sympathy, so much so that he intended to write to tho Prime Minister pointing out that.a very large section thought, and lie thought also, that sustenance applicants who had been convicted of offences mentioned should automatically go off sustenance for, at any rate, a nrolonged term, if not permanently. There was, of course, the point that wives and children would bo adversely affected.. but some arrangement could bo made to meet that.