UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

Taranaki Daily News, 22 December 1931, Page 7

UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

POSITION IN WHANGAMOMONA.

While appreciating that the Unemployment Board’s use of unemployed men under scheme 5 on the farms in preference to the roads was a step "in the right direction, the Whangamomona County Council yesterday decided that in view of the small number of unemployed men available in the county it would not be feasible to put the scheme in operation there. In the backblocks counties it was as important to keep men on the roads as to put them on the farms. It was essential that the roads should be kept open and the settlers could not find the money to pay the rates.

It .was emphasised that the Government should endeavour to transfer the unemployed from the towns to the country so that they could be available for productive, work on the farms. Several farmers had intimated that they could do with men under the scheme, said Cr. Law.

At present the work of the few available men employed on the roads benefited the ratepayers as a whole, said the chairman (Cr. N. R. Cleland), whereas if they were on farms only one or two ratepayers would be directly benefited.

The settlers on the Akama and Farrier Roads, said Cr. Ford, asked that the unemployed should be transferred to metal their road as under present conditions and with the subsidy offering they were not agreeable to go in for a loan. He suggested the council should send a deputation to Wellington on the matter. He considered the solution of the unemployment problem was to establish camps in the district and bring the men from congested centres, as at present the number of unemployed was not more than sufficient to assist the surfacemen.

The chairman said that there would not be the funds to pay the men. if they were in the district. Cr. Gower could not see why the Government could not look after its own interests first by giving assistance to settlers who had been on Crown property for 20 years or more and were still struggling to exist. It would be to the benefit of the Government to have the unemployed men improving the land under the supervision of a field inspector. That would have the effect of protecting the equity the Crown had above the mortgage on such lands. He considered 100 could be employed, in the district at, say, 25s per week and food. The present schemes for dealing with unemployment were ridiculous. The chairman said that the Government had only a limited amount of money. Payment of 25s per week would mean extra taxation.

Cr. Gower pointed out. that the Government would have to increase taxation to meet overseas commitments; the better policy would be to put the labour on the land even if it meaut increasing the subsidy. Cr. Ford thought the time was goino, to come when the men would be forced to o-o from the towns into the country. Some members of unemployment .’committees were against asking men to co into the country unless the farmers were prepared to give them extra work. The district was receiving only little more than half of the weekly allocation required to cope with the men in the area, said the clerk. Without labour from outside and an increased allocation the council could not adopt the scheme. For weeks past they had not received their allocation anything like in full.