NEW RELIEF SCHEME.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20194, 3 January 1934, Page 8

NEW RELIEF SCHEME.

Payment of Sustenance to Elderly Men. SIXTY PER CENT OF RATES. According to advice received by a member of the New Zealand executive of the National Union of Unemployed, Mr C. F. Saunders, the Wellington branch of the union has been inform ed by the Unemployment Board that on the resumption of relief works after the holidays, a new system will be adopted. Briefly, it is stated, the Unemployment Board intends to stand down men of 55 years of age and over and place them on permanent sustenance at the rate of approximately 6U per cent of the existing relief rates. It is estimated that about 1500 men in W ellington will be affected by this reduction. Mr Saunders stated this morning that the Canterbury Unemployed W orkers’ Association had been anticipating a reduction in the relief allocations in Christchurch for some weeks, hut it had been left in the dark asl to the form the reduction -would take. The letter from Wellington stated that there was no doubt that the new system to be applied in Wellington would be generally adopted. The obvious argument of the unemployed against this reduction was that the unemployment fund was intended solely for use in the relief of distress arising from unemployment, and was being used to aid wealthy firms and overseas financial corporations in the form of subsidies. Mr Saunders further stated that the Rapaki relief workers had been notified that after the holidays a new system of work would be instituted at Rapaki. A meeting was to be held at the Trades Ilali next Saturday morning, when methods of resisting the new order of things would be formulated. There was also a dispute in the Lewis Pass No. 1 camp owing to the small pay received at Christmas. The dismissal of the cook at the Balmoral single men's forestry camp had also caused discontent amongst the 49 men employed there. There was a move amongst the men not to resume work after the holidays unless the cook was reinstated. A further dispute developed in the Ashley camp also just before the holidays, and it was anticipated that the meeting on Saturday would be attended by not only Rapaki men, but by men from the single men’s camps and the Ashley camp.