GRAVE CONCERN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 12, 15 January 1932, Page 3

GRAVE CONCERN

BELIEF WORKERS’ MEETING. ORGANISED LABOUR PRESENT. AUCKLAND, Jan. 32. Concern is being expressed in Auckland Labour circles at the failure of the Government to cope adequately with the unemployment position. At. the Trades Hall last night delegates representing various sections of relief workers met in conference with Labour Members of Parliament, and representatives of the Trades and Labour Council, the Alliance of Labour, the Labour Representation Committee and other organised Labour groups. Mr. J. A. Lee, M.P. for Grey Lynn, commenting on the position this morning, said if tho Government neglected to face the position much longer there was a possibility of men who were ordinarily good-natured and law-abiding finding themselves involved in disturbances. “While the men consider they have a chance they battle bravely on,” he said, “but the position is now so bad that the unemployed are becoming restive. Men who have always paid their way find themselves losing their homes because they cannot keep up their interest payments, and their wives and families are not getting sufficient sustenance, and what clothes they owned when, they lost their jobs are gradually becoming rags and patches. The diet provided by the Hospital Board does not moan nutrition for the children. Prompt Action Urged. “I have reluctantly been forced to the conclusion in recent years that if prompt action to remedy the grave state of affairs that exists is not taken disturbances that have been foreign to the country in the past will take place.’ ’ Air. Lee said that on the Mount Albert relief work 34 bootmakers were employed, while the country last year paid £1,000,000 for imported footwear. The employment of men on relief works was loading to increased unemployment. and he was of opinion that it would be better for the Government to pay a certain amount for sustenance as the present system was undermining the basis of employment. He knew of instances where stonemasons and painters were employed at their trades at relief wages. Local body labourers were no longer sure of their jobs, a very nretty distinction being made between maintenance and unemployment work, and there was not the slightest doubt that certain local bodies had retrenched by discharging permanent hands and employing relief workerpaid for out of the unemployment funds.