RIOT DAMAGE

Hokitika Guardian, 16 February 1933, Page 6

RIOT DAMAGE

LEGISLATION FOR COMPENSATION.

PETITION TO THE HOUSE

WELLINGTON, February 15

The Public Petitions Committee has suggested to tho House that, some Provision should be made to deal with cases of proved hardship of persons who suffered damage in tile Auckland riots. The eoiuiuiltce reported favourably on the petition of. F. C. Knott and sixteen others, of Auckland, asking for reasonable 'compensation fqt loss and damage, and expressed the jr.p'inion that legiArfii >n humid he providing for some, system of compensation.

Mr Schramm (Auckland -East) supported the recommendation of the committee. At present there was no provision, in law compensating these people out of the Consolidated Fund It had been estiniao.d that the damage done ju Auckland amounted to £IOO,000, and that was a total less so far as business people were concerned In England people who suffered damngo were entitled to compensation out $f a special fund, and it seemed that the Government would be well advised to make similar provision in New Zealand.

Mr St.illworthy- (Eden) urged the Government to give serious eonsideratirn to tlio committee’s finding. One of the most unhappy circumstances of riots in Auckland was that innocent people had to hear the hrunt of the affair. It was a fact that some o! tho business people in Queen Street who had suffered had been meat sympathetic to the unemployed. Many ot the people who had suffered were in a ,small way and had been placed almost on the brink of ruin as a result of the damage. The report wits tabled. ■..- 1,.,.1.1., 1