RESTRICTIONS EASED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23515, 1 June 1938, Page 4

RESTRICTIONS EASED

SUSTENANCE PROVISIONS EXTENDED I SINGLE MEN AFFECTED (Special to Dailx Times) AUCKLAND, May 31. The extension of sustenance to men who had previously been denied financial- assistance because they would not undertake farm work, and an easing of .other restrictions against relief was announced to a gathering of unemployed single men, following a conference between Mr W T. Anderton, M.P., representing the Government, Mr J. Edwards, organiser of the Unemployed Workers’ Union, and Mr A. T. Grandison, officer in charge of the employment branch oi the Labour Department In Auckland. Following the announcement a special staff was kept busy at the Labour Bureau accepting re-regis-trations of men and taking applications for sustenance.

In -explanation of the position, Mr Anderton said the principle that a man who was offered work of a reasonable nature, which he unreasonably refused, would not be entitled to sustenance was in accord with the Government’s policy to find employment for all men capable of filling necessary and useful jobs. Some anomalies had crept into the situation due to a lack of understanding by the men who had not been receiving sustenance that they were entitled to reapply for sustenance under the regulations. Had some of the . men more accurately presented their cases to the department, it was obvious that they would have received sustenance. Many men had been classed as voluntarily unemployed because they had refused farm work, but at the present time, there was no farm work offering for skilled workers, which meant that the men who had been denied assistance because of their refusal to accept farm employment were now eligible for sustenance. When the position had been explained to the men at the meeting this morning they. appeared to be quite satisfied. There are 400 single registered unemployed men who had not applied for sustenance for various causes, or who had been refused it because they would not accept country work when it was offered. As the result of the announcement to-day it is anticipated that most of these men will now come on the sustenance funds.