UNEMPLOYED RELIEF

Taranaki Daily News, 12 June 1930, Page 13

UNEMPLOYED RELIEF

WHOSE IS RESPONSIBILITY?

AUCKLAND DEMAND TO CABINET,

PRIME MINISTER MAKES APPEAL

By Telegraph.—'Press Association.

Auckland, Last Night.

A conference of 40 delegates from Auckland local bodies unanimously resolved to affirm the principle that unemployment relief should, be a charge on the national exchequer, and to demand that tho Government grant £10,090 to the Auckland Hospital Board for relief purposes, pending legislation to deal with the problem. The hospital board chairman said Auckland local authorities to the end of March, 1929, had spent £200,150 on special works. In addition to these works, the amount distributed by the board and other organisations was probably £lOO,OOO, and still there was poverty and tho number of unemployed was not decreasing. Commenting on this attitude towards tho problem the Primo Minister, the Hon. G. W. Forbes, to-day said:

“This question of unemployment is one which concerns us all and to adopt the attitude that the Government alone is concerned and that there is no responsibility on local bodies or private individuals is to my mind not the right spirit in which to meet the difficulties of men who, through no fault of their own but owing to the slackness of business-, have to be helped. They have some claim on those who in good times have received a benefit from large city ■populations. “It would be deplorable if under the pressure of- this problem wo as New Zealanders drifted away from our characteristic attitude of self reliance and dropped our responsibilities wholly on the public exchequer.”