THE WAR AND WORK

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2364, 21 January 1915, Page 6

THE WAR AND WORK

0 - MAYOR'S EFFORTS SUCCESS IN RELIEVING DISTRESS. War has brought in its train many a hard day's work for the Mayor of this City, and for the Mayoress, too. Mr. J. P. Luke has had a strenuous and eventful career since'he was elected to the highest of oivio seats less than two years ago. Just about twelve months back ho had an anxious time owing to the big strike, and for the last five months, or more, the war has. cast upon him heavy burdens which he has borne cheerfully. ' Nino o'clock in the morning generally finds Mr. Luke at his post in the Mayor's Room, half hidden by piles of correspondence of all kinds. Relief work occupies a very considerable portion of his long working day. The interests of the City have to be attended to as well, land there are •manv other tasks which drift the way of the Mayor. In the matter of relieving, or rather preventing, distress, Mr. Luke has been singularly successful. A large number of men have been sent by him to do work on the City reserves, but tho avenues.of employment .which the corporation offers cannot absorb all the men who seek work. So the Mayor has become a kind of expert situation procurer. Someone calls at the Mayor's Room, pud asks for work? "What can you dof" "I'm an ironmongery salesman." The Mayor rings up a well-known firm. "Can you give this man employment?" "Sorry—No; we're fully staffed." He rings up another firm with similar result, and another, and another. At length someone says: "Send the man along, and we'll see him.". In the course of a day or two there appears among the Mayor's correspondence a letter from, the man, gratefully acknowledging the favour, and saying that he has struck a good job. A few of these cases can easily take up a considerable portion of the day. One man who came out here from the shipbuilding yards in England was knocking about without employment for some little time. He did not go to the Mayor, but the.Mayor heard that there was a man who was willing to work unable to.find employment. He sent for the man, and asked him what he could do.' He was a particularly big, strong pan, and it turned out that he had teen employed in England as a lifter in foundries and such-like places. "A very useful kind of man out here In any iron foundry," said the Mayor, ind he'gave him a note to. a firm not far from the room in which the interview took place. A few days later one of the heads of the firm informed the Mayor that the big chap he had sept over with the note was one of the best men they had ever secured. And so it goes on. and through the interest the Mayor has taken m these matters there are not many willing hands out of work in Wellington today. Women in slight financial distress are among the callers at the Mayor's room, and much has been done to brighten their lot. In these cases the Mayoress takes a hand, and many, a poor woman has Mrs. Luke to thank for a timely kindness. ■ ■ It is a good sign that so far the Mayor has had to expend only n very small portion of the sum of money collected for the relief of war distress. It shows how successful have been the efforts to find employment for unemployed.