THRIFT AND UNEMPLOYMENT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21384, 11 July 1931, Page 10

THRIFT AND UNEMPLOYMENT.

In a statement appearing elsewhere in this issue the Unemployment Board defends itself against the- comments which have been publicly, made concerning the operation of I the Unemployment Act as it affects janem ployed persons who are not entirely without • means. In the particular lease which the Unemployment Board has in mind, an unemployed worker in Christchurch was heavily lined severely admonished by a magistrate for applying for relief work whert t .he had, in point of fact, some £100|) in the savings bank. This would yield him an income of less than £4lO a year. He had been out of for more than a year, and he was paying off a Government mortgage on his property: He was in no better state tha& • the unemployed man who owns Ids own house but is obliged to accept relief work in order to obtain!the means of securing the,, necessaries' of everyday life. The fact that he .jwas excluded from unemployment relief implied that he was the victim df discrimination in favour of those who qualify for assistance from the State by virtue of the fact that they had never taken the precaution to save any of the money they had earned; This was the point that was emphasised .in ff the press. The suggestion which the Unemployment Board makes, ithat the; critics of the Christchurch decision assumed that the destitute yorkless have “ abused their talents,” 1 is, of course, absurd.- Every reasonable person sympathises with the itembers of men who are in parlous state simply because there is no wo?;k for them to do. The Board emphasises that the decision not to afford 'relief to people with saving? is only qf recent origin, and was forced upon it through thelinadequacy of the relief funds. The question may therefore be asked, whether the Board is paying relief moneys only to persons who are entirely destitute. If this were the ease—arid we do Apt for a (moment suppose that it is—then the board would not be completely fulfilling its duties, Thcfiisands of needy men (and their dependents would have to be refused work because one, for cxfample, owned a house, or another a daughter in employment, or another a whippet dog that had won a race and brought him in a few guineas. The purpose of the Unemployment Act, unless the people who are providing the relief funds—the taxpayers of New Zealand, that is—have been misinformed, is to give work to those Iwho, because they have been deprived of their regular employment, are in (need of .assistance to tide them over a, period of depression. It would obviously be impossible to limit relief payments to the starving and the; homeless, or all other persons who are out of work would in course of time be reduced to that * condition. The Board arbitrarily , decided, however, that savings—the > result of thrift — should debar a mam from relief. It might almost as reasonably have ruled that ownership of, a small property, or of a motor cag which cannot be sold, or of two overcoats, should relieve it of responsibility in respect, of an unemployed worker. The difficulties of the Board can ‘be appreciated, bilt acknowledgment qf the fact that it was provided witjh funds insufficient to enable it adequately to carry out its duties cannot alter the circumstance that the regulation to which exception has been taken operates unfairly.