THE UNEMPLOYED

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 50, Issue 130, 14 March 1930, Page 6

THE UNEMPLOYED

RELIEF PROPOSALS. OPPOSITION TO THE DOLE. FARMERS' UNION RESOLUTION. The question of the relief of ""employment was discussed by the MidCanterbury Executive of the farmers Union this afternoon. With regard to the proposals ot the Unemployment Commission, the president (Mr J. R. Dalton) said more people were wanted here, but the point was how to do it without harming someone. Mr W; T. Lill said the proposals would hit the farmer more than anyone else. The farmer was to be taxed, and the local bodies' rates would be taxed also, while the producer was the man who found those rates. He would like to put his hand on a man who would find some means of employing a lot of labour. Costs were too high now. The Arbitration Court was the root of the trouble, by pulling down the highest grade worker to the level of the lowest grade worker. It was no good taking a barrow and; carting sand to stop the sea. England, he was told, was beginning to realise that the men who received the dole did not want to work. The man who did nothing received as much as the good worker. To carry on the proposals was not going to affect a cure for unemployment; it would only make unemployment permanent. Mr R. Oakley moved that the executive protest against any increase . in taxation as a relief for unemployment, as an increase would mean only a continuance of unemployment. Mr G. W. Leadley said that many of the Commission's proposals could.not lie carried out. There were many men 26 years of age in England who had never done a day's work. To bring in the dole was to bring the country to the verge of bankruptcy. Efforts were being made in the County to reduce costs of production by the use of header threshers, but as soon as that is done, the law, as administered by the Arbitration Court, came up to try to make owners comply with this and that regarding the employment of men. Now many of them were out of a job. The Court had made conditions intolerable for the farmer. The Commission's report was not worth the naper it was written on. It meaut that one man dug a hole for another man to fill in. One man lived in idleness, while another "worked his eyes out" to keep him. The motion was seconded by Mr A. P. Bruce and carried unanimously.