Local Bodies and Unemployed

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 130, 18 June 1937, Page 7

Local Bodies and Unemployed

JOSH

ANDREWS.

Sir, — In Monday/a issue of the Herald-Tribune appears a letter signed "Patangata County Ratepayer" wbicli certainly calls for comment. It is a cruel and most unwarranted attack upon those wbo are obliged to go upon sustenance. Your correspondent gives a few figures which indicate a shoekiug ignoranco upon his part. Let me quote bim. 1 ' The country tlxis year as a whole will be taxed to the tune of something like £5,000,000 for the benefit of those out of work. Those iigures which are approximate and may be exceeded, but are unlikely to be much less, work out at £143 per man (mamed and single). If only the 19,864. on sustenance are considered we get £250 per man." Were this only true the conditions undcr which the workless are existing would be very much brighter than at present, although the sustenance men are inhnitely better off than at any other previous period. The single men receive £1 2/6 per week and the married men whose children have reached a certain age receive £1 15/- and so on, a small increase being allowed for each child at school or under that age. "P.C.R." will see by these weekly payments that very few would receive £143 per annum and certainly none £5 per week, as he states. Just here let me remind your disgruntled correspondent that many of these sustenance worners are at times engaged in meatworks, wool stores, etc., and while on these vvage sheets are contributing 8d in the £ and thus helping in a small way to heip others when not obliged therneelves to "lean on the funds." Were it possible for "P.C.R." to come into contact with the workless he would fiud that 80 per cent. would be only too pleased to go off sustenance and to se&ure permanent employment. It ls regrettable to notice the spleen exhited in the remarks, "men pottering about the roads, boiling their billies, emoking their pipes and praying for a sprinkling of rain so that they may quit their My only hope is that "P.C.R. " will never have a taste of what many thousands are going through every year. If he does, he will then certainly alter his views and thus gain a better sense of sympathy for others. — Yours. etc..

Napier, June 17.