BURSAL OF CHILD

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 80, 1 October 1938, Page 11

BURSAL OF CHILD

MR. BARKER'S COMMENT

"If Mr. Fraser. has no personal knowledge of the circumstances he should not rush into print without making at least a few inquiries," said Mr. W. L. Barker, National candidate for Wellington East, when commenting today on a statement of the Minister of Education (the Hon. P. Fraser) regarding the funeral expenses of a child killed on the Hutt Road. Mr. Fraser's statement was published in "The Post" yesterday.

"Certainly Mr. Savage and ' Mr. Semple were sympathetic in their refusals to assist that poor woman financially; but verbal or written sympathy do not help a distracted mother to bury her child decently," Mr. Barker said. "The child was killed by a P.W.D. lorry on the Hutt Road recently. No negligence was proved against the driver. The mother could not afford to bury her child. She appealed to Mr. Savage and Mr. Semple for financial assistance from the State. Both Ministers refused on the grounds that 'the Audit Department would not sanction payment of the amount.'

"When we consider that the Audit Department had no trouble in passing payments for the men who were killed in the Hawke's Bay Public Works Department ,tragedy, for 'educational' trips for Ministers abroad, for £450 for a 'health trip' for Mr. Semple to Australia as the 'guest of the Australian Government' (for six weeks at £75 a week), for hundreds of pounds to produce a. side-showman's outfit for Mr. Semple to travel around the country, and a multitude of other expensive Ministerial extravagances, surely I am justified in.saying that to refuse this poor, lonely, grief-stricken mother £8 15s to bury her child—on the grounds that Audit would not pass the account —constituted a cold and callous refusal."