RELIEF PRINCIPLES

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 466, 25 February 1933, Page 4

RELIEF PRINCIPLES

(Special to "Post.")

RULES ADOPTED BY BOARD FOR PROVIDING SUSTENANCE. the national character.

Wellington, Friday. In the course of the annual report of the Unemployment Board just presented to Parliament it is said that some of the cardinal principles which guide the policy of the Board are that all monetary relief must he worked for; that it must reaeh those whose need is relatively greatest; that the work performed must, where possible be of a reproductive nature, and that relief payments should not approach so closely to wages ruling in ordinary industry for comparable work as to handicap the revival of normal employment. Bearing in mind the fact that the cumulative effect- of the present time of national and individual trial is pregnant with potentialities for good or ill to the national character, these fundamental principles are rooted in very firm ground. The preservation of personal incentive and of the individual's sense of responsibility for the care of himself and his family is essential. Relief work, which, generally speaking, is regular and is allotted to the relief worker without effort on his part should not come to be regarded by him as a normal mode of securing livelihood. When it continues over a, lengthy period the tendency is for men even of previously independent spirit to. cease to look upon it as abnormal, and to resign themselves to apathetic unconcern for the future, content witli , the bounty of their fellows. This psychological aspect of relief ad- , ministration is apt to be lost siglit of, but in view of 'the board demands i constant mindfulness in any responi sible conception of the duties of sucl: a hody and the object of the funds , it. administers.