UNEMPLOYMENT QUESTION.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 August 1921, Page 4

UNEMPLOYMENT QUESTION.

RELIEF FOR RETURNED MEN. EFFORTS BY R.S.A. The work of the R.S.A. in relieving cases of hardship was referred to by the president of the New Plymouth Association (Mr. A. M. Mac Diarmid) at the annual soldiers’ re-union on Saturday night. Mr. Mac Diarmid said that at present there was a good deal of unemployment and the association was beginning to get more requests for help. He was glad to say that in most cases they could find work, or help, for those who needed it.

The suggestion that the New. Plymouth Borough Council should allow the profit from the war trophies’ exhibition to be allocated for relieving cases of hardship among returned men was made by the secretary (Mr. G. Roper). He said that in some quarters he had been blamed for criticising the Borough Council in connection with the exhibition; he did not blame the counci, but the Government, for giving control to the council. He suggested that the funds should he allocated by representatives of the Repatriation Committee, R.S.A., and Patriotic Society. Continuing, Mr. Roper said he had in mind one case in which a man stood between prosperity end bankruptcy for a matter of £290. There should be something done to help such caees as this. Just recently a returned man, who had won the D.C.M. and the M.M., had walked from Wellington to New Plymouth in search of work. As secretary of the R.S.A. Mr. Roper contended such a state of affairs was not what they fought for. Reverting to the question of the exhibition, Mr. Roper said he believed the returned men should have been given charge, and they could have made a really worthy exhibition of their exploits. He hoped, however, that anything he had said would not be misinterpreted, and he desired to see the public of New Plymouth support the exhibition.