RELIEF WORKERS

Southland Times, Issue 22201, 19 December 1933, Page 6

RELIEF WORKERS

RATES OF PAY.

TOWN AND COUNTRY.

(From Our Parliamentary Reporter.)

Wellington, December 17. Strong objections to the policy _of the Unemployment Board in making lower allocations for relief work to country centres than were granted in the cities were expressed in the House on Saturday when the unemployment fund estimates were under discussion. The defence of the Minister of Employment, Hon. Adam Hamilton, was that there were more opportunities for relief workers in the country districts to obtain benefits from the various supplementary schemes, the city workers being chiefly confined to No. 5 scheme. In lodging a strong protest against the discrimination, Mr Samuel said the country unemployed had to stand down a week and received lower rates of pay. If the Minister said that the country worker was a different class of citizen from the man in the town, the country worker would know how to conduct himself to obtain a higher rate of pay. Mr ,H. A. Armstrong said that the relief workers in Johnsonville, which was contiguous to Wellington, had to stand down a week and received lower rates of pay than did the relief workers in Wellington. Yet the cost of living was just as high in the small towns as it was in the city. Mr Samuel: It is higher in many cases.

Mr Armstrong said that before the session ended finance should be provided to raise the relief pay of the country worker to at least the level of the man in the town. The latter received a miserable payment, but the plight of the man in the country was even worse. Considerable sums were being paid out of the unemployment funds for work done by other departments, and large amounts were being granted to the Public Works Department. If those practices continued there would be nothing left in the unemployment fund to meet cases of hardship. Replying to the discussion, the Minister said that it was surely not suggested that the country allocations should be brought up to the level of those of the cities. Mr Coleman: I do.

The Minister said the policy adopted had not tended to attract the men to the cities. The country people obtained more benefit from the supplementary relief schemes than did the city dwellers. The job of the Unemployment Board was to distribute funds as equally as possible. There was no desire to withhold relief from anyone entitled to it, but with the funds available no more could be done than was being done at present. Giving money would not necessarily solve the problem.

Mr Parry: It would help people to get food, though,