OBJECTION TO CAMP

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 102, 24 January 1935, Page 10

OBJECTION TO CAMP

Married Unemployed UNION’S REPLY TO BOARD Tlie national secretary ;>f tlie National Union of Unemployed, Mr. D JlcLtiughlin, writes as follows in reply to a statement in Tuesday’s issue by the deputy-chairman of the Unemployment Board. Jlr. W. Bromley, made in answer to Jlr.. JlcLaughiin’s original letter: — ' "The comments of Jlr. Bromley, in reply to m.v union’s statement of the case for married relief workers refusing to be compulsory drafted to Public Works Department camps, '.-ontain a subtle, but dangerous faliacy. He said: ‘Tlie board's first responsibility was set out in the legislation under which unemployment relief was administered, namely, to put the unemployed men in touch with wages at standard rates, wherever these could be found.’ “It must be pointed out that no /licit commission from Parliament in the Act of 1930, exists as a ‘first responsibility.’ Our trustful parliamentarians left: to the board itself the task of reducing to concrete definition its duties in the relief of unemployment. Jlembers of tlie board have tepeatedly proclaimed their ‘first duty’ to be ‘the relief of distress arising from involuntary unemployment’ (another ambiguous phrase leaving a neat sap for tlie inclusion of compulsory lah'tir). At other times, its ‘first duty’ lias been ‘to act. as? trus'ces for the subscribers to the fund, and so we have experienced one | expedient after another, that lias col--1 lapsed. Jlr. Bromley knows a? well as we that the Public Works Deiiartment standard rate is to-day exactly the same as relief rates, and, further, that tlie 10.000 Public Works Department employees (pioted by him do not receive 10/- per day. These figures include numerous unemployed single men al rates varying from S/- per week up to £1 per week (the latter very isolated). "The present Public Works Department standard rale is variable. The evil principle of differentiating between Hie value of married and single men's labour has no basis in logical human reasoning, and 10/- or 10/6 per day. less time lost through wet weaHier, sickness, etc., cannot possibly maintain a father in camp, and his wife and childreli in town. Mr. Bromley understands tins perfectly, yet has determined to force married men to subject themselves and families to the cruel experience of trying this’impossibility. or. alternatively, to starve at once. Like previous policies of expedience, it will fail, and we merely ask that it be voluntarily scrapped before human beings needlessly suffer.”

Jlr. W. C. Brown, of Paliiatua, na> been admitted to Lewisham Hospita. Wellington He is progressing favour ably.