BOON TO LOCAL BODIES.

Thames Star, Volume LXV, Issue 18243, 17 July 1931, Page 1

BOON TO LOCAL BODIES.

THE NO 5 SCHEME

MUNICIPAL ASSOCIATION'S

TRIBUTE.

The Unemployment Board lias had its full share of adverse criticism with respect to some of its schemes for the relief of unemployed. Some of that criticism has been helpful, but unfortunately some of it has emanated from persons possessing scarcely any knowledge of the facts to support their contentions, and with not the slightest constructive suggestion for the benelit of the unemployed. There have, however, been many tributes to the value of the Board's schemes, which were evolved in the stress of the worst industrial trouble the Dominion has known, and with the number of unemployed growing alarmingly week by week. But the most striking of these declarations with respect to the Board's good work has been made in the following letter from the President (Mr Thomas Jackson) of the Municipal Association of New Zealand :

"I Avould like to express my own and the Executive's appreciation of the work your Board has done in evolving the various schemes for the relief of unemployment. "I Avould particularly stress the importance to local bodies generally of your Board's No. 5 Scheme, which I consider to have been the most efficient scheme which has so far been evolved, insofar as ilt enabled local bodies to place large numbers of unemployed people at work on useful and permanent works within easy reach of their own homes.

"I realise that your Board has been confronted with numerous difficulties. The urgency of the necessity for giving relief made it i(mperative that such schemes as were evolved should be brought into existence with as little delay as possible and I consider that the rapidity with which your various schemes have been brought into operation reflects the; greatest credit upon your Board, and that the operation of the schemes have conferred great benefits upon the various local authorities in addition to the relief and assistance they have afforded to the unemployed workers."