NEW RESTRICTIONS

Taranaki Daily News, 16 January 1933, Page 5

NEW RESTRICTIONS

“SWAGGERS* AND DOLE i - i PROTEST IN AUSTRALIA. ... ■ VALUE OF NOMAD WORKERS. 9 > Sydney, Jan. 5. v No doubt the desire of the Government to prevent fraud or imposition in connection with the dole is in every way laudable. Yet it is possible in the desire for rigid economy to lose one’s sense of proportion, and the latest regulations dealing with the dole in rural districts' have evoked a great deal of strong criti- ■ £ cism, states the Wellington Post correspondent. 1 . / / According to the latest instructions, travellers who want the dole must pro- . ;.:7i duce identification cards. When the new ' -3 ordinance first came into operation, men travelling the country on foot, for example, from Harden or Cootamundra to'Yass, found that when they applied for the dole it was refused. They could ‘ _ not go back to their starting point.to ' secure means of identification. In this in-. stance some of them came from Sydney; which is 200 miles away. In one case .'j.7 several lads employed in a travelling circus found themselves stranded at Yass, without food and Without any:;.. I ’., chance of getting the dole, and they had to depend on public charity for their Christmas dinner. The police had “uo . instructions” that would apply to suchI’/A 1 ’/A cases, and contented themselves with minding the hapless wayfarers that * “official notice” had been given of the new regulations. However,, the Mayor of Yass appealed to the Chief Secretary, .;' and it seems that the authorities con- : trolling the dole issue are to be . given a little wider discretion in. future. FIFTY-MILE LIMiT. There is another regulation drafted on the same lines that seems open to even more serious objection. A regulation has. been issued preventing the issue of road-. .. rations within 50 miles of the State boundary. The object of this rule is, bf../ course, to prevent any chance of fraud .'3 or “double-banking” in regard to the ■;/ dole. But the effect, as a Queensland ;3; correspondent has said, is to create for the homeless wanderer an impassable barrier between New South Wales and the other States. This barrier extends for 50 miles from the border and. forms a sort of No Man’s Land into which the unwary traveller from the neighbouring State ventures at his peril—that is, if he . is on foot and humping a swag in search of employment. Now the effect of this , ? . regulation is not merely to mflict ship upon a number of deserving people " who are wandering about looking for work; it sets up an artificial line of demarcation between the States and prevents them from recognising themselves 7; as each part and parcel of the lian nation. , As one critic has said: “When a man from another State enters N.SW. he is U>l; made to feel that he is not welcome, and3;3 coming from the north especially j means that he has to travel 100 miles without being able to replenish his sup- * plies on the way, the nearest Queens- 7 land towns at which he can obtain 33 rations being a very considerable tance from the border.” The obvious inference is that the Government re-’f.; sponsible for this edict regards a man 3'3 coming into the territory as simply the.-. 1 ..' inhabitant of a special State—Victoria; or New South Wales or Queensland— , but- not as an Australian. In such restrictions are. open to the sama j'.-;7 objections as xhe old' Settlement Acts ; • ■ which England once tried to compel men ; / ■ and women to throw upon the place of their birth the burden; of any “relief* >F* that they might claim. Adam Smith Yfe said a century and a-half ago that there. ,7 was not a man in the United Kingdom ; who had. not been in some way' by the injustice and tyranny of these Acts; and it is surely a mistake to intro- • duce such a principle, however, vaguely and indirectly, into colonial legislation. ;■

MANY NOMADS. . But such a law is particularly ,bbjec-\ •?- tionable in Australia, because the vast extent of the country and the dependence of its primary industries upon sea- ' sonal changes have necessarily made a certain large percentage of our workers nomads. “In the days when", the world • was wide” many thousands of men-?-' walked up and down the country dis- ,*•: tricts of Australia year by year, .,; viding for the farmer and the outback settler assistance that otherwise could j not have been forthcoming. Thus th* swagger—a type entirety distinct from the British “tramp,” .or the American; - r “hobo”—became practically a; national,. < institution, and his services were .recog-' nised accordingly. “It was the pride of this country, beyond all' other countries, i on earth, that here any man could .taike off his coat and earn a living; or could roll his swag to leave town or. city, and the Outback would not. fail him. Everywhere, from sheep,station sheep station, the man with all his t■: worldly goods slung over one shoulder .:. knew what ration to expect in flour sugar and tea”; and he knew that in * this way, if he were willing to work, hs' could travel from one end of the continent to the other. “BILLY” HUGHES’ STORY. It is nbt many years since the best men that Australia has ; produced have lived like that, and a Syd- : ney newspaper man has recently related with great glee a story that “Billy” / ; Hughes—then Prime Minister of'Austra«< ; ? lia calling on the British Prime- Minister . . at Downing Street—told him as they - drove through London in the. official, Rolls-Royce—how “Billy” had “humped ; his bluey” with a trusty mate, and how sometimes the future Prime Minister of the Commonwealth would . engage-: “boss” in earnest conversation while his “cobber” was rifling the hen-roost to provide their evening meal. Perhaps it . is mere sentiment to lament the passing of “billy and pannikin and tucker-b*g,’’:'\-? and of the days when a man-could ’ always be sure of “tea and damper” at . ; least when he set out on his wanderings. But it is important to remember that a certain proportion of Australia’s.: workers are still nomadic—men to whomyK “all Australia is a field of and in view of the value of their vices they certainly seem entitled. whatever public assistance may be avail- , able for those who, working or; less, have preferred comparative comfort of. city- or town,.: $$ ■ -