UNEMPLOYMENT SURPLUS.

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18944, 15 May 1933, Page 9

UNEMPLOYMENT SURPLUS.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —The unemployed of Hamilton will no doubt have been elated to read about the sound flnanoial position of the Unemployment Fund. Those in charge of the administration of it can now sit back, preen themselves and say: ‘‘Look what we have done. We have succeeded, despite the difficult period we have passed through, in balancing the Unemployment Fund and shown a surplus of £102,000." Now, Sir, at whose expense did they succeed in performing this miracle? You have only to ask the unemployed outside of the four centres and they will soon enlighten you. Why should the unemployed of Hamilton have a weekly cut of at least six and a half hours to provide a surplus for the Unemployment Fund? When the Unemployment Board first got down to business they fixed a certain , relief which just—only just, mind you—provided for the bare necessities of life. It should be plain, even to such minds as are in charge of unemployment, that if a certain sum of money provides for just the bare necessities of life the loss of 10s (representing an eight-hour cut) must deprive one of quite a few of those bare necessities, and one gradually, gets into , a form of self-_denial which is nothing more nor less* than slow starvation—very slow, perhaps, but none the less certain if things keep on like this, and the board continues to show a large surplus. Personally I do not think anyone would have minded had there been a small deficit. We would have known then that every penny had been spent, and Hamilton might have benefited by it. Let us hope that when the unemployed in the four centres are wearing the boots that are being provided by the Unemployment Board they will think of the unemployed in Hamilton, who have gone without a lot of the bare necessities of life to leave a surplus for the provision of the said boots.—l am, etc., J. KELLY. Hamilton, May 13, 1933.