THE RELIEF LEVY

Waipa Post, Volume 41, Issue 3177, 19 July 1930, Page 4

THE RELIEF LEVY

A MINISTERIAL STATEMENT.

"SUPERIOR TO BRITISH SYSTEM."

Speaking in the House on the Unemployment Bill, the Hon. W. A. Veitch said the measure retained the main principles of the Unemployment Gommittee's report. In regani-SrU.the criticism of the sustenance allowance,, he submitted that the principles adopted in the scheme under consideration were infinitely superior to those in operation in Britain. In Britain unemployment was treated as an industrial problem, whereas it was a social problem. Wealthy people who did not employ labour should not be permitted to escape contributing to .the scheme. The principle in the present bill was to endeavour to spread the cost equitably over all sections of the community. The financial proposals of the Government provided for theV raising of the Consolidated Fund's, share of contributions by the ordinary methods of taxation. It was not intended to spend a great sum of money on sustenance, which was only to meet cases of dire distress. The point, raised with reference to a man obtaining one or two days' work and then losing the right to sustenance for a fortnight was a matter of de-' tail. That could be considered when the bill was before a committee. Thereason why returned soldiers' vocational training was included in the measure was that disablement extend-, ed beyond returned soldiers, and it. would be foolish to establish two separate organisations to cope with t"STO similar problems, namely, disabled: soldiers and other disabled workers..