CRISIS REACHED

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 30, 5 February 1931, Page 12

CRISIS REACHED

POSITION IN PERTH ACUTE UNEMPLOYMENT

(By Telegraph.) (Special to "The Evening Post.") DUNEDIN, This Day. "Dunedin does not know what unemployment or depression really is." After four years' residence in West Australia a well-known sporting man, who is visiting Otago, niadts this statement in an interview. General conditions in West Australia were very desperate, he said, and unemployment was rife. , He had heard Dunedin people speak of unemployment, but they, had not yet experienced theproblem. Perth would probably , have been swept with a crime wave if a camp vjfor men whose hOmes were not in Perth had not been established. At the Black Boy old military camp site about 1000 men were now located. For os, which they received to pay for their food each week, the men gave one and a half, days' work in the National Park. He looked upon the camp inmates as "the lost j army.;' Little was heard of.their precarious existence. The camp was controlled by an ex-police-,man, who was paid £5 per week. As a camp for the destitute Black Boy 'camp was serving a very useful purpose. , Another 100Q, single, men, residents of Perth, were now on the dole. Each week they received the equivalent of 14s in Lord Mayor's tickets. Tickets of the value of 6d each were issued for breakfast and dinner, while a shilling ticket was allowed for a bed. All over Perth the visitor saw shops placarded "Lord Mayor's tickets are accepted here." About 4000 married men were on the dole. For a wife and a husband tickets of the total value of 14s per week were issued, redeemable at butchers' and grocers' shops. An allowance was made of 5s per week; to «ach child, but the maximum, allowance to any family was £2 9s. The issue of tickets in preference to monetary payments ensured that only necessaries would be procured. If a man succeeded in obtaining a; day's work his payment went to the landlord, otherwise the owner of the house was. very fortunate if he received any rent. Should an unemployed man receive more than, a day's work the amount of his dole payments'was reduced by. a corresponding sum. .'.,.'■.'

A tragedy was the existence of about 200 girls on .the dole. - Agajin in thoir case no money was actually paid over, but the girls were made an.allowance of 14s per week.; In addition hundreds of girls who received no sustenance were a responsibility on their parents residing in Perth. Many workers were now engaged on part-time employment at Bo wen's Emporium, the biggest establishment in Perth, where anything from a :needle to an anchor could ,be purchased. Twelve hundred hands had been employed, but the staff was How reduced to 800, many taking one week off in every five. At tho Midland Railway Workshops 600 men had been dismissed, and many wore now trembling for security of their positions. Unemployment had reached a crisis in Perth City, which had a population of 180,000. ■ '!