UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 123, 16 January 1932, Page 4

UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

Both the Mayor, Mr„ T. Jackson, and the deputation from the Rotorua unemployed who waited upon him on Thursday evening, are to be congratulated, the former upon the frankness of his attitude and the latter upon their willingness to see both sides of the question. The deputation, which had been appointed by a meeting of unemployed men the previous evening, announced that it had been instructed to protest against the system instituted in Rotorua last Monday under which the unemployed are being required to work five days a week unless they can obtain other employment, in exchange for the Unemployment Board's "sustenance allowance" of 18s, 30s or £2 10s, according to their domestic responsibilities. Of the several ways in which their protest could have been made, they chose quite the best and most effective. An alteration in the system of allotting work as radical as that instituted in Rotorua last Monday — and so f ar nowhere else — was bound to create a feeling of uneasiness among the men affected, at least until its purpose was explained, and their request for information was reasonable and the manner in which it was made and the Mayor's statement received were a tribute to their commonsense. Public sympathy cannot but be influenced to the side of men who, facing the difficulties and privations many of these are known to be suifering under, are still able to recognise that there is a limit to what can be done for them and to appreciate the efforts on their behalf of the iocal authority, even thoiVgh tbose efforts may have met with only partial success . On the other hand, Mr. Jackson, took quite the right line in telling the deputation bluntly that one

ot the purposes of the new system was to weed out those men, — we hope they are fewyn number — whose selfishness has led them to adopt the practice known as "farming," in other words, of claiming the full benefits of the unemployment relief schemes while at the same time, unknown to the authorities, they were in receipt of other part-time wages. Por such men it is very difficult to find aiiy excuse in view of the fact that, as every school boy knows, the funds at the disposal of the Unemployment Board have not for some time, been* sufficient to enable it to pay even its modest standard rates to all those in need, many single men having had to get on as best they could entirely unassisted for several weeks at a time. In such circumstances the selfishness displayed by the "farmers" is beneath contempt-, especially as in Rotorua there have been other sources of help available to those men whose needs were exceptional. As Mr. Jackson said, those men who have been "farming" have been robbing their fellows in a particularly mean way and almost any steps are justified to stop the practice. The formation last night of an unemployed workers' association should, if wisely conducted, prove a valuable means of maintaining contact between the men and the * authorities and the Mayor's offer, on behalf of the Unemployment Committee, to welcome to the c'ommittee a delegate from the men's organisation, should prove beneficial, both to the committee and the men.