RELIEF WORK CAMPS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18335, 1 March 1934, Page 11

RELIEF WORK CAMPS

LITTLE FAULT FOUND LECTURER’S EXPERIENCE (Per Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, last night. To go into a relief camp and spend part of his holidays working on the roads was the course-adopted by Mr George Lawn, lecturer in economics at .Canterbury College, who. was formerly a momber of tho Unemployment Committee, in ail endeavor to learn at first hand what life in the. camps was like. , Mr Lawn said in an interview today that he found the men of good type, working reasonably well, and taking pride in doing the job well. Tho food was excellent and the tents reasonably comfortable. The major fault found 'by him was the small rate of pay, never exceeding 10s a week, which was insufficient to keep the men properly clad and provide them with any opportunities of saving enough to enable them to try and seek regular employment. The result was that nien in camps had little opportunity of being re-absorbed in industry. His only other complaint was against the method of doing work with tho primitive equipment of pick and shovel and barrow. Ho suggests that, if proper road-making machinery were supplied, work would be done- at a much lower unit cost..