USE OF LABOUR

Southland Times, Issue 22333, 26 May 1934, Page 4

USE OF LABOUR

MAINTENANCE WORK. REQUEST TO MINISTER. (Per United Press Association.) Auckland, May 25. “If the Unemployment Board admits the principle of allowing relief labour to do ordinary maintenance work we are gone,” said the Minister of Employment, the Hon. Adam Hamilton, when replying to a school committees’ deputation which asked him to allow No. 5 Scheme men to be used on school maintenance work. The deputation said that some school grounds had been so much developed that their maintenance was proving costly, and as the committees were dependent on donations and the proceeds of concerts, etc., they were finding finance very difficult. The returns from concerts had fallen by 40 per cent. Moreover, the committees had to finance free hot drinks for children in the winter. The Minister said that if people allowed the use of relief labour for works which should be done in the ordinary way it merely created unemployment. If school committees could show that they were not receiving sufficient funds that was another issue, but the Unemployment Board was not to blame.