CITY COUNCIL LOAN FOR RELIEF WORKS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 145, 20 June 1931, Page 15

CITY COUNCIL LOAN FOR RELIEF WORKS.

SCHEME OUTLINED TO UNEMPLOYMENT BOARD. The decision of the Local Government Loans Board to consult with the Unemployment Board regarding the Christchurch City Council’s application for sanction to raise a loan of £39.500 for the relief of unemployment, was anticipated by the Mayor (Mr D. G. Sullivan, M.P.). When he was in Wellington last week the Mayor waited on the Unemployment Board and gave an outline of the council's proposals. He submitted to the board that the scheme should have its bleeeing because of the fact that it provided for useful work. He said yesterday that, while he had had no official communication from the board, individual members of it had told him that, without expressing any opinion on the question of wages, they were

exceedingly pleased that an effort was being made to utilise the relief workers on a kind of work, the usefulness ol which could not be cavilled at, namely the construction of permanent streets With regard to the question of wages Mr Sullivan said he had pointed out to the board that both the Minister ol Labour and the board itself, in specific statements, had laid it down that the question of the amount to be paid was a matter for the local bodies and not the Unemployment Board to deter mine. lie would say most emphatically that if the scheme was otherwise ac ceptable the Loans Board would have

no justification for basing a decision on the question of the rate of wages to be paid by the City Council.