4,000 ON RELIEF PAY

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1032, 24 July 1930, Page 7

4,000 ON RELIEF PAY

STATEMENT BY MINISTER “SITUATION WELL IN HAND” THE SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter WELLINGTON, Wednesday. According to a statement by the Minister of Lands, the Hon. E. A. Ransom, who is chairman of the Cabinet Unemployment Committee, in the House of Representatives today, there are at present 4,000 men on the pay-rolls of the various relief works in the Dominion. He said that arrangements were w'ell in hand for providing work. Mr. J. S. Fletcher (Independent— Grey Lynn) in an urgent question asked what the Government intended to do to meet the unemployment problem in the meantime, before the Unemployment Bill became operative. Amid Reform laughter, Mr. Ransom said that the Cabinet Unemployment Committee had the question well in hand. Mr. Fletcher: Well out of hand. Mr. Ransom said that he could assure the House that the matter was well in hand, and that arrangements were being made in all the centres r.o place men in employment. Of course, the Government was not able to provide jobs at present for all those out of work, but it was dealing with the most urgent cases first and dealing with them very generously. Arrangements had been made for placing men on land development work, and men were being drafted for that class of employment. Of course, a good deal of preliminary w r ork was necessary before land development work could be started. Very careful surveys had to be made of the blocks concerned. The Hon. W. Downie Stewart (Reform —Dunedin West): How many men are on the pay-roll at present? The Minister: I think about 4,000. There are more men on relief works now than for many years past. Mr. H. S. S. Kyle (Reform —Riccarton): And more out. The Minister: I won’t say that.