HAWERA MEN SEEK WORK

Taranaki Daily News, 30 January 1931, Page 9

HAWERA MEN SEEK WORK

“THE POSITION DESPERATE” NEITHER WORK NOR MONEY NOW. SUGGESTIONS TO GOVERNMENT. ' ' / Lj Nearly 100 unemployed and several supervisors, including the Mayor of Hawera, Mr. E. A. Pacey, and a councillor, Mr, W. G. Simpson, met last night to consider the unemployment position. Mr. B. Cox, who was voted to the chair, said the country had not yet realised how serious matters were for those out of work. The following resolutions were carried:— (1) The amount of subsidised work offering is not sufficient to give men a bare existence, and in the event of work not being offering we will be regretfully compelled to ask for sustenance. (2) Unemployed number 153 in Hawera, and the position is desperate. While agreeing with your statement that no money should be paid without work, we wish to point out that at present we are getting neither, and urge upon you the need for immediate action, either work or sustenance, and would further urge the immediate calling of Parliament to deal with the position. (3) We the unemployed of Hawera to the number of 153, who with our dependants number 500, many of whom are in desperate straits, wish to draw the attention of the public of Hawera to the position. We have sent telegrams to the Unemployment Board and to the Prime Minister, and are asking for an immediate session of Parliament. This is all we can do.

(4) That the Government be requested to employ gangs of mon to clear abandoned soldiers’ settlement farms, and when cleared to give these free of taxes for a period to selected workers to farm..

The first and fourth resolutions are to be forwarded to the Unemployment Board, and the second to the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes. NOT EQUAL TO SUSTENANCE. Referring to the payment of 14s. a day to men under the No. 2 scheme, one speaker said that many men had had only two days’ work a week. Their pay at 14s. a day was not equal to the sustenance allowances, set out in the Act, Unless they obtained permanent jobs they could not live on less. Several speakers seemed to express the tone of the meeting when they said work, not sustenance, wag wanted. Attention was drawn, to the hundreds of acres of gorse in Taranaki that could be advantageously grubbed, and it was stated that straight-out grants from the Government would enable local bodies to put in hand useful work for which they had not the finance, even if subsidised.

Mr. Facey thought that Mr. Forbes had “bitten off more than he could chew” when he said that no sustenance payments would be made without work. Perhaps the Prime Minister had not been correctly reported, he added. The view taken by Mr. Simpson was that Mr. Forbes had had some scheme of work in mind when he had made the statement. Attention was drawn by Mr. R. McNeill when moving the fourth resolution to the numbers of soldier settlers who had walked off ‘ their farms. In many cases, as at Parihaka, the land had been allowed to “go back.” In his opinion, there was plenty of money in the world and in New Zealand. Pressure would have to be brought to bear on those hoarding it. Speaking oil the same resolution, Mr. M. R. Jones referred to a native settlement scheme in the King Country. Something similar for Europearts should be workable, he added. Several of those present commented on the excellent way in which the meeting had been conducted. At the outset the chairman asked for no fireworks. At the conclusion Mr. Pacey said that if the men out of work continued to behave as they had done so far during the crisis they would be assured of public support. The meeting had been a distinct contrast, he added, to the stormy ones held in some other centres.