RATES OF RELIEF PAY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 16, 16 December 1932, Page 13

RATES OF RELIEF PAY

PROTEST AGAINST REDUCTION. ARCHBISHOP’S APPEAL. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, Dec. 15. Archbishop Averill has sent the following letter to the New Zealand .Herald concerning the cut of 10 per cent, in the pay and sustenance of relief workers:—“Tho many attempts to impress upon the Unemployment Board the gravity of making a 10 per cent, cut in relief pay a.nd sustenance will be endorsed, 1 venture to think, by all fair-minded and thoughtful citizens. The resolution of the executive of the Council of the Christian Congregations and the letter of Archdeacon Mac Murray are sufficient evidence that the churches are of one mind in urging upon the Government the seriousness of the step taken and the terrible hardships inflicted upon thousands of honest men, and tens of thousands of suffering wives and children.

“The season of Christmas is surely an invitation t.o all men and women of good wiil to manifest their sympathy, ono with another, and to try and bear one another’s burdens. In spite of all the work of social organisations which have done and are doing their utmost to relieve distress, and in spite of all the good work done by the Mayor’s Unemployment Fund and many other agencies, the problem is really too big for tho funds at the disposal of the local agencies, and can only really he met by Government action.

“It is in no sense with a desire to harass the Government or Labour Department that I put.forward this additional plea for reconsideration of this question, but with the hope that humanitarian considerations may outweigh financial ones. I am conscious of what our request means, hut I am conscious also of the dire need of many brave men, women and children who have no happy Christmas to look forward to. I would appeal to men who are compelled to work for relief pay to continue the brave front which so many of them have manifested during this trying time, and not to jeopardise their own cause by yielding to any go-slow policy or doing anything which will weaken the hands of those who are really anxious to help them.”