BRITAIN'S IDLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 174, 25 July 1928, Page 7

BRITAIN'S IDLE.

BALDWIN POLICY.

Migration And Transference As Solutions. OPTIMISTIC OUTLOOK. T' l (British Official Wireless.) ;,V -, (Received 12 noon.) RUGBY, July 24. The Prime Minister in Parliament to-day dealt with the unemployment question and especially with the points raised by the report of the Industrial Transference Board. His statement, was made in reply to Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald, who moved a resolution deploring the inadequacy of the measures taken by the Government to deal with the tragic national problem of unemployment and generally criticised the policy of the Government on the question. Mr. Mac Donald said the Government was doing its best to lull the country into a state of complacency, but the tremendous and unexpected leap of the official unemployment figures showed that the problem was threatening to master us. The report of the Industrial Transference Board stressed emigration as the remedy, but we should first be most careful that our own country was being developed. (Labour cheers.) There were roads to be constructed, slums to be clcared away and other essentials whereby the wealth of the nation might be added to. So far as j emigration was concerned the report of I the Transference Board was one of despair. It was the most damning contribution ever made against a Government and its handling of the unemployment problem. The Prime Minister said that the latest figures of the Board of Trade showed that unemployment was mainly in the great staple industries, particularly coal and cotton, but the general trade of the country had been maintained. The statistics demonstrated that unemployment, serious though it was, was local and confined. Development in this country was going on. He did not think there was any doubt about that. Taking the country as a whole it ought to be perfectly possible for the growing prosperity of other areas in the south and in the midlands to afford some relief to the depressed areas. If the changed equilibrium of the more prosperous industries was a fact, then it should be possible that wherever development was still proceeding, from that source help might be found for places where development had been arrested. That really was the key to a large proportion, of the report of the Industrial Transference Board reorganisation of industry. Unfortunately this had meant a certain amount of displacement of labour, but undoubtedly that reorganisation was going on in this country to an extent which it had never don© before and he found some comfort in the thought that industry would emerge, when they were through these times, better manned, better organised and pulling together better than ever before. For the time being there was a surplus of labour and the aim of the unemployment policy should be first, so far as possible, to break up concentrated unemployment by the absorption of as many unemployed as possible in areas that were prosperous. That was the Tiew of the - Transfer Board, and he agreed with it. In regard to migration Mr. Baldwin said that it was not a case of shifting their unemployment burden on to the Dominions or wishing to transfer men overseas simply because they were unemployed. * What really mattered was the likelihood of a man making good in his new home. When a man contemplated what was before him here and compared his prospects with his chances overseas, he should have a right to choose for himself and to put his choice into practice. The question of migration had to be further thrashed out between this country and the Dominions. The Government wanted to have the fullest and frankest communication and. they saw their way in certain directions to the adoption of a more active policy of migration, both under the Empire Settlement Act, and otherwise. In the matter of preliminary training the experience of the last few years and the reports on overseas training had decided the Government to embark upon a substantial expansion of their policy in this direction. Lord Lovat, -Under-Secretary for the Dominions, was going out to Canada, Australia and New Zealand to follow up the discussions already initiated by the Dominions' Secretary (Mr. during his recent tour. He would discuss fairly and freely with representatives of the Dominions all matters which had been mentioned with regard to the Export Credits Guarantee Scheme. Mr. Baldwin said that would come to an end next year. In the absence of any further order the Estimates Committee of the House of Commons had conducted recently, a searching investigation into the working of the scheme, and had expressed themselves as satisfied that it was of practical advantage to the export trade. This certainly was not the time when they could allow any approved assistance of that kind to be dropped. The Government proposed in du« course to introduce legislation extending the scheme for a further two years from September of next year. In conclusion, the Prime Minister announced that the Government would accelerate the execution of a portion of their scheme for giving railways relief from local taxation in return for a reduction of freight charges on certain specified tin flic, with a view to helping the basic industries.