Cost of Unemployed.

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 832, 28 November 1929, Page 8

Cost of Unemployed.

THREE YEARS’ RELIEF WORK

APART altogether from charitable relief, Auckland City has spent well over £60,000 in the past three years upon special works for the unemployed. This money, far from being wasted, has been expended mainly in works which are already producing a return as factors in City and suburban development.

When Auckland’s programme o£ relief work was begun in 1926 money was available from the Mayor’s Unemployment Relief Fund, and at that time a generous Cabinet distributed a subsidy of £ for £ upon all sums thus expended. Since that time the State’s share of the cost of local relief work has dwindled to a £ for £ subsidy upon labour only. Thus many local bodies were compelled to abandon many big jobs which were contemplated purely as relief measures. As finances are at the moment, there is money enough in the City treasury for several months of steady work for about 185 men. A review of the past three years’ achievements, however, furnishes an idea of what has already been done for the people, primarily with the object of assisting men into jobs. The greatest undertaking was the Western Springs Stadium, which is now practically finished and ready for opening at the end of this week, and which is costing on the whole somewhere in the vicinity of £27,000. The formation of the 33ft wide cinder track, for motor-cycles, encircling the football area, is just being completed, and the concrete cycle track, or “‘dish,” is all ready for use. The final touches are now being made to the gates and buildings. Most of the men from the stadium have been transferred to the open space between it and Great North Road, where 13,000 cubic yards of earth and 10,000 cubic yards of rock have to be shifted so that the ground may be converted into three football fields and six basketball areas. This job will cost £B,BOO.

In a few months’ time City people will be able to journey on level ground from the Auckland Post Office to St. Heliers Bay, because the No. 6 section of the waterfront road is already well advanced, Ijnking as it does the road round Gower’s Point to the Strand, St. Heliers.

A work of magnitude, costing £28,400, this section of the difficult roadway involves the erection of a

stone embankment, filling-in to the level of the road, and surfacing. Approximately two-thirds of the embankment is built. As there is something like £20,000 in hand for the completion of this road, a, large number of men will be kept in work for some time. Prominent among the relief works in the City, and one which is already returning a great benefit in certain directions, is the development of Walker’s Road Recreation Ground, Point Chevalier, upon which £4,000 was spent in development and £9,000 in the purchase of land. Now there are six football grounds, and all of them in use. Just on £II,OOO has been spent in levelling and laying out the grounds in the vicinity of the War Memorial Museum, which is being opened this afternoon. Some men are still working on the access roads and upon the slopes close to the giant structure upon the highest point in the Domain. Another wqrk that is progressing in preparation for future Auckland is the transformation of Lake Waiatarua into a recreation ground and beauty spot. Including the lake, this area is 188 acres, but when the drainage operations are complete the water w-ill cover only 21 acres and a road two and three-quarter miles long will encircle the whole. The remaining 155 acres will become a park. To date somewhere about £IO,OOO has been spent upon the preliminary work at Waiatarua. Two minor park development schemes are being completed, one at Pencarrow Avenue, Epsom, and the other at Gillies Avenue, Epsom, both of these having been designed as sports grounds. The Gladstone Road Extension, Parnell, too, is receiving attention by relief workers. The council has 187 men on relief work this month. If satisfactory they are kept on. The old system of employing workers for two weeks and then dismissing them to give others a chance proved unsatisfactory, and since the middle of this year the permanent system of employment has been adopted with great success.