CHAPTER IX
PUBLIC ASSISTANCE
46. Although there has been an increase in the number of persons in employment during the year, this increase has affected mainly those who possess some basic skill or, at the least, a primary education or else are of a young working age and so can easily learn simple operative tasks. There still remains a large proportion of the swollen population who have none of these attributes and for whom life is a matter of day to day subsistence. Any calamity, misfortune or sickness which afflicts the bread-winner leaves the other members of the family without any immediate means of livelihood. To these must be added a group which will always be found within any community and particularly amongst hundreds of thousands of refugees: the aged who have lost contact with their relatives, the handicapped and the infirm. For all these people, the most imperative and immediate need is food. The provision for them of one hot cooked meal a day, or in some cases of dry rations, is the main function of the Relief Section. The second need of these people is assistance towards rehabilitation; and the other primary duty of this Section is the investigation of these cases with a view to helping them back onto their own feet.
47. The Relief Section of the Department through its six welfare centres, three on either side of the harbour, distributed a daily average of 4,244 cooked meals during the year to destitutes, after detailed investigation of their circumstances by case workers of the Section. This was an increase of 849 over the daily average for the previous year of 3,395. Aged, blind, tubercular, or physically handicapped desti- tutes, or widows with young dependent children, are given dry rations once a week, instead of daily cooked meals, the amount being enough for two meals a day. This ration includes firewood and enables these people to cook their own meals at home rather than having to attend a centre for their food. Employees discharged from H.M. Dockyard when it was closed and civilian ex-employees of the Armed Services have also been supplied with dry rations while they were looking for other work. The average number of daily rations was 5,947 compared with 3,990 for the previous year. A table showing the average cost of both meals and dry rations, with their ingredients, will be found at Appendix 13. The cost to Government of the public assistance given during the year was just under $2 millions, the major proportion of
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