THE SUSTENANCE ARMY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23045, 23 November 1936, Page 8

THE SUSTENANCE ARMY

If it is the aim of the Government to attract recruits to the army of men on sustenance it would appear to be going the right way about it. A few days ago the Minister of Labour announced that it was intended to make another increase in the scale of allowances payable as sustenance. The last increase was made in June, when single men were given 17s a week instead of 14s and the maximum for married men with dependents was raised from 44s to 57s a week. The amount of the fresh increase has not yet been disclosed, but it is to take effect as from December 1. Experience suggests that men who prefer to be maintained by the State in idleness rather than earn a living as opportunity presents itself will not be slow to take advantage of the Government's generosity. Toward the end of April the number of men on sustenence was given as 14,000. On October 24 the official total was 24,301 men receiving sustenance without work, and of these, according lo the Minister,

probably 7000 were not physically capable of working at all, and 7000 or 8000 others would be able to do only light work. That leaves a residue of approximately 10,000 who are presumably fit to work for a living. How many of them want to work now? How many more of them will be inclined to look for work when the State's gratuity rises still higher on December 1? How many men who are working at the moment will shortly decide that the line of least resistance has greater attractions? These questions are relevant, and they do not reflect at all on the genuine sustenance cases, of which there must be many. The Government is popularly supposed to have set its face sternly against the encouragement of idleness. Ministers in charge of the great labour-employing department? are supposed to have a wholesome contempt for the shirker and the slacker. Opportunities for employ ment are supposed to have been enormously increased since the Gov eminent began to give effect to its policies. And there are at least 10,000 men on sustenance to-day who apparently ought to be working! The public is entitled to know more about the sustenance position, since It is being required to keep an army of men in idleness. Almost daily instances are reported of sustenance men being brought before the courts for offences connected with gambling or drunkenness, or for other flagrant abuses. These may be extreme cases, but the fact that they are being brought to light in increasing numbers seems to suggest the need for a rigorous purging of the sustenance rolls, for which purpose, it would appear, investigation should not have to wait upon Police Court proceedings. The New Zealand Herald has just had occasion to remark, apropos of the farm labour problem, that men are leaving farms to sign on for sustenance in the towns. It adds that many farmers who can pay wages according to the prescribed scale cannot get men. It will doubtless please those farmeremployers to reflect that, as from December 1, some 10,000 able-bodied men, to say nothing of 8000 others who might come into the odd-job class, are to receive more money for doing nothing.