SINGLE UNEMPLOYED.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 June 1931, Page 9

SINGLE UNEMPLOYED.

(To the Editor). Sir, —As I expected my suggestion that, the single men should leave the funds from the poll tax for the hungry women and children and get out in the country for their food has raised a yell that rocked the roof. Some of your correspondents have called me all sorts of names, including a white slaver. All J have to say on this point is my con* science is clear. I have always paid my permanent men top wages and treated them as only a man who has carried his swag round France knows how to treat his fellow men. As for the men I; had on for their food and tobacco for two months in the winter, this was .an arrangement to our mutual benefit, and saved them from either walking • the roads or paying hard cash for board. The most they could work was six hours a day, and with wet days and Saturdays and Sundays off they "were not being treated as white slaves. Anyway, they n-ot fat on it. It took £1 a week to feed them and at least 5s for tobacco, papers and matches, as well as being supplied with gum boots. If anything, they had the better of the bargain. It saved them at least 25s’a week and the hardest of all work, namely, walking the roads, or idleness in a boardinghouse. I again say that these men are not... as’well off on' two days’ work a week as they were working for me on my terms. One of your correspondents says even tho slaves of 1000 years ago had to have clothes as well as food . Certainly they had. But have not the men who put in two or three months of the year working for their food got the other nine months on fair to good wages in which to keep their clothes in good order? The figures I quoted above show that I made veiy little, if anything, out of their labour, but I got necessary work done, which I could not get done without their help. Some of your correspondents seem to think that because they have paid the poll tax they are entitled to keep. Rot. If they pay their fare on a ship to a distant port and she strikes a rock and is sinking, does the fact of having paid their fare entitle them to a place in the lifeboats, especially if there are insufficient boats? If they ever get in such a position on a British ship they had better not try and put their sentiments into practice, or they will be in Davy Jones’ locker before their ship. What about the farmers who have worked from 14 to 16 hours a day in all weathers and. got absolutely nothing but a lot of worry for their work? Are they entitled to help from the schemes? They might be, ” but they certainly would not get it. What are they doing? Simply living on their capital or borrowing on the future cantings. All I suggest is that the single men live on the capital nature gave them (a backbone and muscle) and work for their food for a few months. They are tho only unemployed who could and sltould do so. Tho women and children cannot, therefore the money should be left for them. Anyway, some of your correspondents ; get veiy ferocious because I suggest they work for food and tobacco and keep out of debt, whereas on their own showing they are working in town under the schemes for some 4s a week less than their board and are prepared to owe the good landlady this 4s till better times come. In my opinion the following statement'by the Hon.'S. G. Smith sums up the whole matter. He says as reported in yesterday’s Daily News, that “recently 137-8 men were sent out to relief works in the Auckland province; 990 of them returned to the town shortly afterwards.” . Perhaps they got a sweat up and caught a chill, which needed an electric light reflected off a footpath to cure it. Or perhaps there was no menu in the country to select' their dinfaer from. —I am, etc., FARMER.-.