PAYMENT BY COUPONS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 152, 15 July 1937, Page 4

PAYMENT BY COUPONS

-Own Correspondent )

Rotorua Maori Unemployed CHECK ON EXPENDITURE

(By Tolegraph-

AUCKLAND, This Day. With the approval of the Native Department and other interested, the Labour Department has decided to introduce a Dew system for the payment of Maori unemployed. The object of the scheme, which is an innovation in this country, is to ensure that a proper proportion of the money received by the natives is used for the purchase of necessities and is not expended in certain undesirable directions which penalise , their wives and families. The scheme will be operated , by means of coupons which wiU be interchangeable for necessities but which cannot be used in hotels or cashed for money. For the present it is proposed to apply the scheme only to those natives in receipt of sustenance, but the Labour Department 's certifying oificers are being instructed that if any cases come under their notice of Maoris in receipt of money from relief scheme No. 5 misapplying the use of this money these cases are to be reported with a view to applying the coupon scheme tq , them also. ' It is proposed to pay natives on sustenance two-thirds of their money in coupons which will be interchangeable for food, rent, clothing, etc., and the other third in cash. The question has been extensively discussed by those interested in native welf'are in the Rotorua district and it is understood that the scheme will be applied with their full approvaL The suggestion was made that the scheme should be applied to all natives employe'd on contract work on the Maori schejhea but it was found that the differeuce of applying the scheme in these cases would be so great that it would not be workable,