HELP FOR UNEMPLOYED.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 138, 12 June 1926, Page 10

HELP FOR UNEMPLOYED.

POLICY OF GOVERNMENT. LEGISLATION FORESHADOWED PREMIER AND LABOUR BODIES. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. Replying to a deputation urging the cause of the unemployed, the Prime Minister said that so far as was humanly possible the Government would join with the Labour organisations in endeavouring to overcome the unemployment trouble. His one thought was that all should get their shoulders to the wheel. Personally he believed the trouble was only temporary. It was hoped that the committee of the various organisations which had been set up would assist in relieving the situation, and that the legislation which he proposed to ask Parliament to pass, and which he had no doubt would be passed, would result in a lot of the present trouble being got rid of in the course of a fortnight at least.

"We meet on common ground and in a common cause," the Premier said, "and our efforts will be directed towards getting work for the unemployed and giving relief in necessitous cases. If you want additional representation on the committee from the Trades Hall we are willing to give it."

The Prime Minister further said that he could not agree to using public works for absorbing the unemployed. That would be like going back to the "good old days." All public works employees nowadays were trained men who gave a good return for the money spent. His concern was to see that they had something to look forward to in the future, and that they went on with the programme that had been laid down by the Department. When the Department had a good man it wanted to stick to him. Unemployment was seasonal to a great extent.

extent. Wherever it could be arranged, concluded Mr. Coates, men would be drafted from the Labour Bureau to the relief works. There could not very well be two registers of unemployed, and he suggested that the Trades Hall authorities, who frequently would have more information than the Labour Department, should keep in close touch with the Department, which he was sure would be only too plea-sed to receive recommendations.