HIGH RATE OF WAGES FOR UNEMPLOYED

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 88, 5 July 1927, Page 9

HIGH RATE OF WAGES FOR UNEMPLOYED

BRINGING MEN TO TOWN A CANTERBURY DISCUSSION (Special to THE SUN.) CHRISTCHURCH, To-day. fpHAT men are being enticed from the country to look for work in the town by the high rate of wages paid by unemployment relief committees, and that money granted to local bodies for the relief of unemployment should be paid out at the Government relief rate of 9s and 12s a day, were two contentions that were urged strongly at to-day’s meeting of the Lyttelton Harbour Board. This new angle of the unemployment question was presented by country members of the board. When suggestions that the board make a grant were considered, a motion that the board’s grants to the Christchurch City Cotmcil and the Lyttelton Borough Council be qualified by the condition that they be paid out at the Government rate of relief wages was lost by the casting vote of the chairman only, and grants were made to both local bodies, subject only to their being subsidised by the councils. Letters from the Lyttelton Borough Council and the Christchurch Unemployment Committee urging respectively that if the board make a grant, the claims of Lyttelton be considered, and that if possible employees of the board contribute threepence a week to the committee, such a sum to be subsidised by the board, were received. Mr. H. Holland, M.P., moved that the board grant £SO each to the Lyttelton and Christchurch Councils, and that those bodies subsidise grants £1 for £l, also that the board subsidise contributions of its own employees at the same rate.

“Are we going to hand this money over to local bodies and allow them to hand ordinary rates of pay to the unemployed?” asked the Hon. R. Moore, M.L.C.

A member said that it would be left to the local bodies, and Mr. Moore declared that this was a mistake. It was only encouraging men to remain in town looking for work, instead of going out into the country. Mr. W. K. McAlpine said that farmers could not afford to pay what was regarded as arbitration wages. Men were walking through the country and not asking for work, but instead for a bed and a meal.