A QUERY.

Waipa Post, Volume 43, Issue 3392, 24 December 1931, Page 5

A QUERY.

Sir, —Is it correct that the borough foreman suggested to the Council that a man trying to support a family on £2, or £3 a week must provide out of that pittance his own tools if he wishes to be employed on our local relief works ? . It is a thing unheard of even for full-time labourers. I wonder if the foreman ever had to buy his own pick and shovel ? It comes hard to many to pay the unemployment levy and the tax on wages, but when the money goes to heln some fellow being, less fortunate, to keep body and soul together, it is not grudged, and as a payer of this tax I must protest when a man who happens to be in' charge of a mere dozen or so out of our vast army of , 50,000 unemployed suggests that they must spend a part of this money to buy tools. The money paid to the unemployed is paid wholly to provide sustenance, and I am sure, that the Unemployment Board and the Minister in charge would not countenance such an act as the borough foreman suggests. ' If local funds are so low that these tools cannot be provided it is hard to understand how the Council allowed, in these times of stress, £2OO to be spent on band instruments, and over £IOO of this amount being debt. Perhaps those councillors who wish to build the library on to which they have not yet a titKpHdll be more careful when dealing": With the matter of purchase of tools, which: is one of common humanity.—l amy etc.,

FAD2 PLAY,