“AN EVASION”

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20364, 23 July 1934, Page 7

“AN EVASION”

SUSTENANCE STATEMENT CHALLENGED. Reply to Mr Bromley. “ SHOWS NO SIGN OF REPENTANCE." The statement made on the sustenance question by Mr W. Bromley, deputy-chairman of the Unemployment Board, has aroused little enthusiasm among the members of Christchurch organisations which have carried motions protesting against the present operation of the scheme. Inquiries this morning showed that the position was still considered unsatisfactory and the Mayor (Mr D. G. Sullivan. M.P.) went so far as to say that Mr Bromley had deliberately evaded the issue as far as Christchurch was concerned. “It is clear that so far as Christchurch is concerned Mr Bromley deliberately evades the issue,” said the Mayor. “ All his talk about the rate of sustenance is beside the point for the reason that in this city men were deliberately taken off jobs on which they had been working for months and .placed on sustenance. “ While there may be some instances of men going to work on crutches, to argue from the particular to the general and to take a few isolated cases and talk as though all the men went to work on crutches shows the extent to which Mr Bromley is driven in his efforts to defend the policy of the board.

“ What I am most disappointed about in Mr Bromley’s statement is that it shows no signs of repentance for the action of his board in deliberately taking men away from jobs and putting them on a weekly sustenance allowance that in plain and simple truth can only mean semi-starvation. I am sure that the overwhelming majority of our citizens will concur with me in denunciation of the Unemployment Board for the totally inadequate sustenance that it has provided.” Investigation Needed.

“ The whole statement appears to be in the nature of special pleading by Mr Bromley,” declared Mr A. S. Taylor, who took a prominent part in the discussion of the sustenance scheme at the annual meeting of the Citizens’ Association last Thursday evening, when a motion of protest was carried. “As far as I can understand the question the whole matter needs to be still further investigated before the public will be satisfied that the Unemployment Board is doing its best for these people who are so unfortunately placed.” Taylor added that without possessing an intimate knowledge of the details of the scheme or the manner in which payments were worked out, looked at in the final result the payments to the men on sustenance still appeared to him to be very inadequate. The fact appeared to be that the B class men who were unfit for heavy work and who from the necessity of their cases were under a great disadvantage in obtaining employment to supplement their sustenance allowances would, under the present scale of sustenance payments, receive an amount that was certainly very inadequate for the support of themselves, their wives and their families. If Mr Bromley’s last contention meant to say that the unfit men by reason of their unfitness should not receive as much relief as fit men he was again penalising people who could not help themselves. Protest Over B2 Men.

Mr E. H. Andrews, chairman of the Citizens’ Unemployment Relief Committee, emphasised that the committee’s protest applied solely to B2 men. Dealing with Mr Bromley’s illustration of an applicant with twelve children receiving £4 6s 6d if granted sustenance under the terms of Section 20 of the 1930 Unemployment Act, Mr Andrews declared that the committee had never asked for the men to receive more in sustenance than they would get under the unemployment scheme. The committee realised that there should be a maximum of sustenance, but the members did not want to see men penalised for going on to sustenance. In the case of men over fifty who could go voluntarily on to sustenance the corrtr.'ttee had no complaints, as such instsr. es concerned the individuals concerned. Similarly, the committee had no complaint over the cases of men over sixty whose wives were in receipt of the old age pension. “ Mr Bromley’s statement practically admits the justice of the committee’s arguments, namely. that provision should be made from some other source, to wit. the hospital boards, to make up the difference for sustenance men,” added Mr Andrews. “ What the committee complained of was that the board brought in the scheme of sustenance before such provision was made, consequently the men were put in the position of having to live on a very much decreased amount from the mere pittance they received as unemployed workers. Mr Bromley’s arguments that the money is not available to pay the men will not bear investigation because hitherto when the men were working they actuallv received a greater amount from the board’s funds.” (Mr Bromley's statement is reported on page 6.)