The Wanganui Chronicle. MONDAY. MAY 23, 1932. UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF ADMINISTRATION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 119, 23 May 1932, Page 6

The Wanganui Chronicle. MONDAY. MAY 23, 1932. UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF ADMINISTRATION

WHILE it is fully appreciated that the problem of unemployment is a difficult one, and for that reason those attempting to carry out the work of providing adequate relief schemes deserve to be free from purposeless or captious .criticism, nevertheless present conditions compel comment. There is in this community of Wanganui a widespread fear that the unemployment problem of the Dominion has outgrown the capacity of those entrusted with its control; that centralised administration in Wellington has been a mistake, and that there exists no adequate mental grasp of the problem, and no cleatideas as to how best to approach it. This fear may not be well founded, but it exists, and it must be confessed that there is some ground for its existence.

The fact that the Wellington Unemployment Committee has just resigned in a body, has added strength to this fear already made strong by the statements of the chairman of the Wanganui Hospital Board. Two months of the financial year have gone by, and the Hospital Board can get no information as to how long it is to continue providing for the necessitous eases during the stand-down week. The result is that neither the Hospital Board nor the City and County Councils can properly prepare their financial estimates for the current year. This obligation of providing for the stand-down week is one which the Hospital Board was supposed to have been relieved of two months ago. The stand-down week has been abolished in the cities; then why not in the provinces? The abolition of the stand-down week in the cities does not look like design; it bears the mark of a sop to the disorderly; it is putting a premium on lawlessness. It should be made known, because it is a faet, that trouble-makers are busily at work in Wanganui; their designs are being frustrated by the good deeds being done by voluntary agencies, and by private citizens, but the inadequacy of the administration in Wellington is aiding those seeking to cause trouble. It is because it is known that voluntary agencies are manning the breach, that the dissatisfaction with the administration of the unemployment relief in Wellington grows apace. It is regrettable that the publie of Wanganui should suffer its present embarrassment. It is benumbing effort to aid the •unemployed, it is driving deeper the fear that the unemployment administration is inadequate and it is encouraging those whose delight it is to fish in troubled waters. The position is unsatisfactory and the longer it is left the more so will it grow. Immediate action on the part of the Wellington administration is imperative.