COUPON PAYMENT

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19377, 15 July 1937, Page 12

COUPON PAYMENT

MAORI UNEMPLOYED SCHEME APPROVED With the approval of the Native Department and others interested, the Labour Department has decided to introduce a new system for the payment of Maori unemployed. The object of the scheme, which is an innovation in this country, is to ensure that a proper proportion of the money received by the natives is used for the purchase of necessities and is not expended in certain undesirable directions which penalise their wives and families. For some time the extent to which drinking has become prevalent among a certain section of the natives has been causing concern and the scheme is designed to counteract this tendency by ensuring that the natives must devote one-third of their receipts to the purchase of necessities. The scheme will be operated by means of coupons which will be interchangeable for necessities but which cannot be used in hotels or cashed for money. For the present it is proposed to apply the scheme only to those natives in receipt of sustenance but the Labour Department’s certifying officers are being instructed that if any cases come under their notice of Maoris in receipt of money from relief Scheme No, 5 misapplying the use of this money, these cases are to be reported with a view to applying the

coupon scheme to them also. It is proposed to pay natives on sustenance two-thirds of their money in 'coupons which will be interchangeable for food, rent, clothing, etc., and the other third in cash.

The question has been extensively discussed by those interested in native welfare in the Rotorua district and it is understood that the scheme will be applied with their full approval. The suggestion was made that the scheme should be applied to all natives employed on contract work on the Maori schemes but it was found that the difficulty of applying the scheme in these cases would be so great that it would not be workable. According to a communication received by jMr. A. F. Moncur,' M.P., from the Hon. Mark Fagan on behalf of the acting Minister of Labour, the necessary forms, ration orders, etc., in connection with the scheme are at present being printed with a view to introducing the scheme within the next few weeks.