Unemployment Demonstration Fiasco In Dunedin

NZ Truth, Issue 1273, 24 April 1930, Page 6

Unemployment Demonstration Fiasco In Dunedin

HAD the affair been properly organised — if the unemployed had assembled at the Trades Hall and marched en masse to the Town Hall to wait on the City Council — the public w;ould have been able to distinguish what percentage of the Dunedin crowd shown m the accompanying picture represented a muster demonstration of the general unemployed. < „.,,, ■•• About 200 workless men gathered m Dunedin one day last week to give the Mayor and his fellow councillors an ocular demonstration of the seriousness of unemployment m the city, and to urge the city fathers to raise the rates to provide immediate funds for unemployment relief, without seeking the votes of ratepayers. The ranks of the workless were considerably swelled by hundreds of more fortunate citizens, whojeft their places of employment and gathered at the Town Hall. Neither the Mayor nor any other representative of the City Council was there to give the leaders of the hapless band an audience. .„...«„,.,.■. « The local papers , were inclined to ridicule the whole business, the "Evening Star" describing it as an inglorious failure." But whether it was or was not a failure, the Mayor or some of his colleagues, "Truth" contends, should have been present to receive the unemployed muster. Many ofthe unfortunate men who were present m the crowd afterwards told "Truth" that they felt as though the world had added insult to injury and that the Council's attitude seemed to be: "Blow you, Jack, we're all right!" fe * -'