UNEMPLOYED IN THE COUNTRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 December 1931, Page 12

UNEMPLOYED IN THE COUNTRY.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —I would like to ask those responsible, through the columns of your paper, why the money set aside for the extra work at Christmas is being divided only among the town unemployed. The men in the backblocks are not getting anything extra at all, and most of them ha,ve been living in a state of semi-

starvation for months. They have had the rotten end of the stick all along. They have been told: “Your work is 20 miles away; go and get it.” It has cost some of them half their day’s pay to get there, and when they have been walking ten miles or so to their day’s work they have been refused travelling time. They have their rent to pay the same as town folk, and milk and other things to buy, just the same, contrary to the general belief that it is all given them for nothing. A loaf in the country costs Is. 4d., and butter Is. 4d., when it can be procured for Is. in town, and yet when some of them applied to the relief committee for help they were told that the country people did not need it, as living was cheaper there. But if they want to get meat sent out they must pay the same price as town folk, and sixpence to a shilling extra for cartage. The town unemployed get taken to and from their work, when it is any distance off, but the country unemployed must pay his own way or walk. I wonder what the town people would think if they were asked to walk from five to 25 miles each way, and put in their full eight hours into the bargain. It seems to me that the country people are being deliberately victimised at the expense of the townsfolk, else why should a married man with four children to support be given only six days’ work in the month, required to pay his own way to it, and then be stood down altogether in the Christmas week, while the money set aside for the extra work at Christmas is divided out in the towns. When they are forced to apply to the charitable aid for help, they have to pay anything from five to ten shillings to get there, or walk from five to 30 miles. Their shoes’ never last as long as the townsfolk’s, owing to the distances walked, and the rough roads, but they have to pay just as much for a new pair as well as five or ten shillings fare to town to get them. It is through the people all going to live in town that the present high rents have been caused, and the Government has been exhorting the people to go back to the country, but the people know very well that they are better off in town, even if the ratepayers, through the charitable aid boards, have to pay for the high rents charged them. I have not spoken to a single member of the unemployed in the country who has not expressed his determination to go and live in town, as soon as they can get enough money to shift with. And the Government has only itself to blame if they all do, for the unfair way they are treating the country unemployed. They have received no consideration whatever, and so long as they remain in the country I don’t think they ever will. Anyhow, why should not the country unemployed be able to give something more than a piece of bread and dripping to their children on Christmas Day? 'Some of them will be lucky to get even dry bread if jSomething is- not done—the children have been half-starved for months—but it has got to end. If they are of so much less value to the country than the town children, we will bring them to town, and soon put them on an equal footing. It is the far back places, the lonely country cottages, where the real distress, the bare and stark poverty and the empty cupboard is to be found, not in town, where the (Salvation Army, the churches, the relief committee, the charitable aid, all combine to see that none go cold or hungry. There is help also for the sick, in town, where the neighbours do not have to spend their time pulling ragwort and milking cows, like the country woman, whose husband is usually away chasing rumoured work that is always a mirage, who has been too sick to get up, and has no one but her babies to do anything for her, and

just as often as not, neither food or money in the house to 'help to make her strong. Ho, the townfoik are certainly to be envied, but why should they be if iha Government were fair. —T am, etc., FAIR PLAY. .