THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4830, 20 December 1893, Page 1

THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD.

3TEMS OF INTEREST TO WORKERS. Compiled fob the "Stab."] A New Scheme of Unemployed Relief. A private conference, at which the Lord Mayor presided, was recently held at the Mansion Houte to consider proposals for the provision of relief employment throughout the United Kingdom during the coming winter. Cardinal Vaughan, the Bishop of London, the Bishops of Marlborongh and Rochester, and Archdeacon Sinclair were amonej those present. Mr A. F. Hills, president of the Vegetarian Federal Union, expressed his willingness to subscribe JE6OOO for the starting of a Mansion House Fund if the fund were created for the provision of relief employment npon certain fixed principles, and administered by an executive committee o! experts, nominated by the subscribers to the fund. A partnership was suggested between the charitable public, the local authorities and the State, in equal divisions. Supposing the Mansion House Fund reached a total of say £100,000, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would he asked to find another .£IOO,OOO. The administrators of the fund would then give notice to the local authorities within their area that upon their making application for assistance for the carrying out of pro•per relief employment works upon the conditions laid down for the administration of the fund, any turns allocated for ' such a purpose from the ratei would be trebled by the assistance of the charitable public and Stat», bo that, supposing any V66try should undertake to provide JBIOOO from the rates for thepurjrose of making an experiment in ralief emp'oyment upon the conditions of the fund, they would be able to nndertake the enterprise w.itb a reserve capital of .£3OOO. In poverty- . stricken or degraded districts repairs of every kind were in need of being undertaken. These repair works should be placed in the hands of local manufacturers and tradesmen, so that local industries might be stimulated,, and the existing facilities of skilled Btaff, foremen, shops, machinery, &3., fully utilized. There are numberless works awaiting money, which could be carried out for the improvement, beautification, and benefit of every residential district round London. There was work for women no less than men— clothes needed mending, bed furniture repairing, books binding. The arrangements suggested weie reciprocally beneficial; every partner in the transaction was the better for it. The giver could find scope for his generosity without fear of conferring, not benefit, but demoralisation ; the State coufd lend the assistance of its accumulated resources without fear of indefinite and unlimited responsibility ; the local authorities could set in motion the machinery of local industry without the task of administering what they o&uld not understand. Eventually ifc waa decided that a committee should be appointed for the purpose of going into the matter.