THE UNEMPLOYED

Hokitika Guardian, 17 September 1930, Page 6

THE UNEMPLOYED

ATTITUDE AT MEETING

(J3y Telegraph- Per Press ation.)

WELLINGTON, September 16,

When, after rather a heated interlude, the Mayor of Wellington, Mr G. A. Troup, moved at a meeting that he had called, that an appeal be made, for donations towards a fund to pro. ide work for the unemployed, and hi.s motion was defeated on a show of hands, he disbanded the meeting.

Among those present were a large number oil men, apparently unemployed. The Mayor said that 450 were to be employed on relief works by the City Council, but there would ho a ''gap between the cessation of those works and the operation of the new Act. The donations would be used to bridge the gap. Sixty-eight pounds had been subscribed already. .»• The Mayor’s motion that appeal be made to the citizens for funds was lost.

The Mayor had • intended to move another that a Committee no set up to go between the men and the potential employers.

An amendment was moved by Mr T. Bromley, a.member of the Them ployed Committee of .the Trades and Labour Council, that all the works already approved for which finance was provided be started, im mediately and that a farthing in the pound rate be levied on the improved value for. other,..works. This was ruled out of order. After the Mayor’s meeting hat? closed between fifty and a hundred unemployed met on the Town Hall steps, where threatening language was used, one speaker saving that only the workers were concerned in unemployment. Che only thing that mattered to the employers, he said a stttt fi ahiehgc vidrimv Tpraab was that they might find a brick through a window or something else unpleasant. There were several speakers including two women, and the proceeding were lively until the lights werturned out, when the group dispersed.