WORKLESS ARMY

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 521, 2 August 1932, Page 1

WORKLESS ARMY

UNEMPLOYED DESCEND ON OTTAWA. March to Parliament. PRIME MINISTER WILL RECEIVE DEPUTATION. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received August 2, 11.30 a.m.) OTTAWA, August 1. Travelling by automobile, freight car and on foot, a band of unemployed, estimated to number between 200 and 300, arrived at Ottawa over tjie weekend to attend a Workers’ Economic Conference, which is scheduled to begin on Monday. Before the week is out, leaders of the movement declare, 1200 men will be in the capital. A march on Parliament is planned for Tuesday, when an attempt to see Mr Bennett and to present demands will be made. Their demands are said to include non-con-tributory unemployment insurance for civilians and one dollar ten cents a day cash for unemployed war veterans. Seven hundred ' delegates to the National Conference of Unemployment Councils met in an abandoned garage on Monday and passed resolutions urging non-contributory unemployment insurance, shorter working days, the cessation of the police terror, and the exemption of all poor farmers from taxes, debt and rent payments. There were scores of women in the crowd and the ex-soldier division included former officers of the Canadian Corps, one of whom won the Distinguished Flying Cross, and there were also at least one lawyer and two former preachers there. Later. Those attending the so-called Workers’ Economic Conference are members of the Workers’ ex-Servicemen’s League and the National Unemployed Councils. Both are regarded as Communistic, and therefore illegal. The campers are being meagrely fed by the Workers’ International Relief Organisation. Mr Bennett has agreed to receive seven delegates to-morrow, provided they are not Communists. Their demands include a dole of ten dollars weekly and the release of the imprisoned Labour agitators.