PREMIER CHALLENGED

Hokitika Guardian, 31 January 1931, Page 5

PREMIER CHALLENGED

BY LABOUR LEADER.

(By Telegraph—Per Press Association)

WESTPORT, January 30,

Commenting on the Prime Minister’s reply to yesterday’s Wellington deputation, .Air H. E. Holland, Leader oi the Labour Party, said that it was most difficult to comprehend .Mr Forbes’s meaning. If tlm press message had come through correctly, it would imply that the Prime .Minister proposed to interfere with the work of the Uncm- 1 ployment Board, and it was more than doubtful whether lie had the power to do that. 'l'lii' foundation principle of the Unemployment Act was the provision of work, and, failing that, the provision of sustenance. It work was found, the question of sustenance did not arise. If work was not found, and sustenance was not forthcoming, it would mean that the decision of Parliament was being flouted. The Act imposed on the .Minister of Finance the obligations to pay certain monies out of the Consolidated Fund into the Unemployment Fund, and the further obligation to direct the payment of monies out of the Unemployment Fund oil the recommendation of the unemployment Board. The Bottl'd had already decided that sustenance payincuts were to commence on Fc'brwary 21, and bad issued regulations governing sue.li payments. It was the duty of the Minister of Finance to act on the Board's recommendation in this connection, and it would he surprising if the Minister should set himself the task of vetoing its decision. more especially since his colleague, the Minister of Labour, was Chairman of the Board. The Prime Minister could not surely he taking the situation seriously when lie declared that, until the Board came to him confessing its inability to provide work, lie would permit no sustenance payments. Mr Holland said that he could not imagine any member of the Board remaining in his position if the decision regarding February 21st should be set aside. He insisted that neither the Prime Minister, no anyone else, had the power to set it aside; but, in any case, it was universally known that the Board had failed hopelessly in the matter of providing work, and to say, now. that if the Board failed to find employment it would be found by the Government was only to set people asking why work was not being found. Every man in the country would prefer work to sustenance without \\ oi k , but the fact remained that work was not available. Besides people were paying the unemployment levy in order that sustenance should be provided, and women and children, be safeguarded against Want and hunger during the enforced idleness of their breadwinners. The decision to pay sustenance could not be vetoed without dishonouring a solemn obligation. Furthermore, the Prime Minister should explain how his new policy would affect the intermittently employed workers, the watersi tiers, miners and others, covered by Sub-Section 3 of Eection 10 of the \ct. and who. under Mr Forbes’ term, would onlv be able to claim sustenance by permanently joining the unemployed. . . . “Either the Prime Minister tms been incorrectly reported, ’ added Mi Holland “or be lias taken up an attitude that be would discover to be | whollv untenable.”