REASON FOR ACTION.

Waipa Post, Volume 44, Issue 3180, 21 May 1932, Page 5

REASON FOR ACTION.

“MAKING GOVERNMENT REALISE.” In an interview with a Waikato Times representative one of the men who took part in the shop-raiding demonstration made the following statement: — “ The majority of the unemployed in Huntly have been put off from the mines since Christmas, and since January have been working on the unemployed scheme,” the informant stated. “They have not been receiving the full allocation, and instead of receiving three days at 12 s 6d a day have averaged 12s 6d a day for two days. During this time the men’s clothing and boots wore out and they could not pay rent. How can a man receiving 25s a week pay 15s a week for rent and feed his wife, his children and himself at the same time?

"Three weeks ago the Waikato Hospital Board gave us a donation of £BS in cash. This worked out at 10s for a man and his wife and 2s for each child. Single men received ss. No work was done for this money. This week the board decided that married men would receive one day's work in the off week at 12s for the day, while no guarantee was made for single men. It was stipulated that this would be the last assistance obtained from the board. The only way to get assistance was for us to place the responsibility qn the Government and not on the board. THE SITUATION DESPERATE. " What we did to-day we did to show the authorities that the situation in Huntly is desperate and that the people are short of food. *' The unemployed went to the Far-

mers' Trading Company and asked for goods to the value of £1 for each family on credit. The manager had been good to us before and had granted a credit of £SO to us, which we paid off within a month. This time he wished to consult other shopkeepers on the matter, but the unemployed would not wait and helped themselves. " The instructions of the leaders were that no windows were to be broken, no property destroyed, or anything taken other than food. This the men implicitly obeyed. " The object was not to steal, but to bring before the nublic and the Government the seriousness of our position and at the same time to show that the unemployed of Huntly should be provided for in the same manner as those of Auckland and Wellington." WORK ON RAILWAY. " Two months ago ten members of the Unemployed Workers' Movement were placed on the railway to do permanent way work which had previously been done by permanent railway workers at 14s a dav. The Government dispensed with several of the railway staff who were working on the 14s a day basis and asked the unemployed of Huntly to take on their jobs at 12s 6d a day. " This was nothing better than a wage reduction scheme, and the unemployed refused to ' scab' on railway workers. We went out on strike and remained out for five weeks, when on receiving a guarantee that none of us would be placed on the railway, we returned to work. " The day before yesterday, however, Mr Slaughter, of the Auckland Labour Office, informed us that 30 of the Huntly unemployed would be placed on the railway. This was a breach of the settlement arrived at to end the strike: It has also been inferred that if we are called upon to go into the mines at 12s 6d a day, and ' scab' therefore, on the miners, we will have to do so or lose the right to relief work. We have decided, however that we will not ' scab' on the miners any more than on the railway men." _