RELIEF SCALE CUT

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18253, 23 November 1933, Page 2

RELIEF SCALE CUT

MINISTER CRITICISED MR COLEMAN’S STRICTURES BUSINESS MEN INDIGNANT (Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. Dealing with the policy of the Government in connection with the relief oi unemployment, Mr. D. W Coleman, member for Gisborne, toon the oppoitunity of re-introducing to the House ot Representatives, during the Budget debate, the views of his constituents c? the recent cut in the scale of relief payments. He referred to a statementon the part of the Minister of Employment, relative to receipts and expenditure under the heading of unemployment, and declared that according to what the Minister had said, there was a profit of £424,000 from the unemployment fuud, which came from the taxes collected largely from the working men and women, and even from the cliudten, whose paltry 5s and 10s per week was taxed to help build up the iund. RESOLUTIONS of protest

“The action of the Minister in making a cut in the allocation of the relief pay in various districts is causing Dominionwide indignation, not only among the relief workers but among every section ot the community,” stated Mr. Coleman. “At nearly every public gathering oi men resolutions are passed condemning the Government for cutting down the allocation. In my district the matter has recently been taken up by the business men, “and 1 would like to say at this stage that I think tlie business men throughout New Zealand should have taken up this matter long ago. Hie business men are holding meetings and sending telegrams to the Minister ot Employment protesting at his action in cutting the allocation. , “The County Council, the Borough Council, the Hospital Board, and, as a matter of fact, every public body m my district is indignant at the action ol the Government, and all passed, resolutions protesting at it. We cannot wonder at that. -if “Let me give members some idea oi the amount received bv men on relief work in my district. Single men who have been exempted from going to camp other single men receive no work—cet 7s 6d a week ; married men with no children get 15s a week; married men with one child, 16s 3d a wec,v, married men with two children, £1 a week; married men with throe children, £1 2s 6d a, week; married men with four children, £1 5s a week; married men with five children, £1 7s. 6d a week; and married men with six or more children, £1 10s a week. Thirty shillings a week is the maximum that will be paid, whether the man has six or nine children —as some have. “We cannot wonder, then, that indignation is very keenly felt and very widely expressed in that district. The relief workers to-day in that _ district, and, I suppose, in other districts of a similar nature, are being treated in what one might almost term a shameless. manner” MARRIED MEN AND CAMPS After devoting some attention to the possibility of using relief funds to good purpose in the construction of railways and other works of productive value, Mr. Coleman criticised keenly the policy •which was forcing married men to go to camp and leave their families in town, with but a small chance of being able to do anything for them. Moreover, he held that actual hardship was being caused by the application of this policy, claiming that men who were not fitted either by experience or health circumstances for life in the camps were being stood down for refusing to undertake the work to which they were drafted. “Whilst in Gisborne during the weekend, a married man whom I know very well informed me that he was told to go into camp, despite physical disabilities, and he was further informed that if lie did not go into camp he would be stood down,” continued Mr. Coleman. “He is a hard-working and respectable man. Ho produced’ a doctor’s certificate stating that he was unfit for camp work as he was required to l have frequent attention for sciatica. I know that to be true, for on the day I Jeffc Gisborne to come down here to attend the opening of the session that man was doubled up with sciatica and he could not walk without a stick. But the department would not take that man’s word and his certificate. The department sent him to another doctor who knew nothing about him, and as he appeared to be well, the new doctor said that he was well enough to go into camp. The certificate of the doctor who knew all about the man should be accepted in preference to another doctor who knew nothing about the ease. This sort of thing results in hardship and suffering to the men concerned.”