FIRST EARNINGS IN MONTHS

Evening Star, Issue 22450, 22 September 1936, Page 6

FIRST EARNINGS IN MONTHS

STEWART ISLAND FISHERMEN ON RELIEF IN PARLOUS PLIGHT [Pee United Press Association.] INVERCARGILL, September 21. Fifty-three fishermen of Stewarli Island will earn their first penny, for. more than two months this we etc when they will begin relief wort under the No. 5 scheme. For the last sis years fishing on tb« island has not been a remunerative job, so much so that on a basis of the returns from the fish exported each fisherman has, over that period, earned an average of 18s 9d a week, and the end of the 1936 season has been so bad as to be the last straw. Statements from the fishermen themselves, checked with the export records and by other residents, disclose the full extent of the plight of the 80 odd men engaged in fishing from the island.; Many of them have not wet a line for fish for more than two months, because of worse weather than for many seasons. The Minister of Employment (tne - Hon. H. T. Armstrong) has authorised the granting of work under the'No. 5 scheme only to those in urgent need of assistance. How widespread that urgent need is can be gathered from the action of the local certifying officer in listing almost all of the fishermen in Halfmoon Bay itself as being :n urgent need. The relief work that the men on the island will begin this week will be on country roads, but there is a general feeling on the island that some large public works job should be undertaken to find work for the men from now until February, when the next fishing season will begin. A representative of the ‘ Southland Times ’ who visited the island at the week-end says that the men on the island do not parade their poverty, and it was a difficult task to find details of the position from them, but the impression was everywhere gathered that assistance was urgently needed. Mainland residents can only with difficulty imagine some of the consequences of poverty on an isolated island. For instance, the birth of a child to a fishing family at the present time is a grave matter, and although friends and relatives will assist with clothes and other necessaries, and there is a district nurse, parents who have not had a penny come into the house for months at a time have tar more serious worries than rehef workers in the city would have. The community spirit engendered by the isola- ' tion of Stewart Island is an asset tar greater than money. Everyone help* those in need, but the whole communitv has ne.’cr been so short of money as 'it is now. Any relief that the Government can give is urgently needed.