ISSUE OF RATION TICKETS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 521, 2 August 1932, Page 7

ISSUE OF RATION TICKETS.

Unemployipent Board to Investigate System in Christchurch. TEMPORARY ARRANGEMENTS MADE. A COMPLETE INVESTIGATION of the system adopted by the Eabour Department in issuing ration relief tickets in Christchurch is to he made by the Unemployment Board as a result of numerous complaints of the operation of the. system having been made to the Minister. Mr R. T. Bailey, officer-in-charge of the Department in Christchurch, has been asked to proceed to Y ellington to discuss the position with the Minister and the Unemployment Board, and Mr J. S. Jessup, deputy-chairman of the hoard, who is at present indisposed, will visit Christchurch at the earliest opportunity to meet the Citizens’ Unemployment Committee and other organisations interested in the problem. In the meantime the Mayor (Mr D. G. Sullivan, M.P.), who returned from Wellington to-day after interviewing the Minister on the subject, has been asked by the Minister to render all the assistance in his power to ease the position until the investigation is completed.

The Mayor has authorised the Benevolent Committee of the Hospital Board to expend up to £250 from the Mayor’s Distress Fund on relief in the next fortnight. If this sum is fullyexpended the committee is to approach him and discuss the position. When the committee previously administered relief in cases of unemployment it dealt with from 650 to 950 applicants a week at an average cost of 11s 9d a family. Mr Sullivan has agreed to the request of the Minister, and has made arrangements with the Benevolent Committee of the Hospital Board for special assistance to be given to urgent cases in the meantime. It is believed that the action that has been decidecF upon is the forerunner of a more liberal policy on the part of the Government in the issue of ration tickets.

sideration has been given to the special circumstances of the applicants. .it has been stated that, while the officers of the Department have carried out their instructions strictly, there has been a lack of humanitarianism in their administration of the system, and that anomalies have resulted. Minister's Statement. There was nothing unusual in Mr Bailey going to Wellington to discuss matters, said the Minister of Labour, the Hon Adam Hamilton, in an interview this morning. He described Mr Bailey as a good officer, and said that if Mr Bailey went to Wellington he would return to Christchurch the same night. There might be local difficulties in Christchurch in regard to the issue of rations, but those difficulties were being looked ipto and would be straightened out. The Unemployment Board did not have unlimited funds, and it was doing its best to obtain the utmost from the funds which it did have. .

The principal complaints that have been made against the operation of the system of issuing ration tickets in Christchurch are that insufficient con-