Relief This Year May Cost £40,000

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 409, 18 July 1928, Page 8

Relief This Year May Cost £40,000

HOSPITAL BOARD’S FEAR

“A NATIONAL QUESTION”

The fear that it will have » speed £40.000 this year on chlnL able relief *s depressing the AueW land Hospital Board. K *

At the meeting yesterday tli» chairman. Mr. W. Wallace, said Uat the comparative statement for tY three months ended June, 1917 and June. 1925, showed that, last ye>l £7.120 was spent on outdoor reliet and that this year the sum £9.533.

“There is no easing off whateverhe said. “We look forward to the next three months, July, August and September, to be worse than the three. They will probably bring relief up to £12,000. We must draw attention to this, which is a national question. The relief is becoming alarming and it will be a very big drain on the resources of our rate-

payers.” The chairman thought that uu board might spend £40.000 before the end of the year. The estimate was £30,000. GOVERNMENT’S INACTION “Up to now we haven’t been able to make the Government realise that it is not a joke,” said Mr. M. J. Savage, M.P. “There are smiles all around whenever I speak of it. The Government says dogmatically that it isn’t their job; but who’s is it?" A member of the Prime Minister’s staff had come to Auckland to investigate the position, continued Mr. Savage, but that man had not even made inquiries of the board. Other members declared that people were not getting enough to eat and that the hospitals proper were being filled from this oause. The report of the relief committee showed that 140 new cases were considered during June, compared with 166 in May and 159 in April. Cases revised numbered 297 in June, 406 in May and 165 in April. Of the total number of cases unemployment wns responsible for 221 in June, 267 in May and 141 in April.