UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 74, 28 March 1929, Page 6

UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF.

The secretary of the New Zealand Workers' Union has made serious charges against the Public Works Department in respect of the treatment of men in its employ, and the Minister has invited him to prove his words. It is curious that a union secretary should so vehemently attack a Government that has raised relief wages, and should invoke the memory of a Government against which the cry of "nine boh a day" was raised throughout the electorate last November. The Minister not only made an interesting rejoinder to Mr. Cook's charge, but had something to say on the question of public works versus farm employment. Mr. Ransom concedes something to the Government's critics when he says that men on his relief works " will not bestir themselves to obtain other employment so long as the Public Works job lasts." But can men be blamed for wishing to keep a steady job when they have got it? They would not be there at all if industrial conditions were healthy. Where is the proof that there is ample work for them to do outside the Department? And when farmers complain that relief works are depriving them of labour, it may be asked what wages and conditions farmers are offering. Mr. Ransom has undertaken to see that relief works are not abused in this respect, and to make the Public Works Department a recruiting bureau for farmers. Of course, the farmers must be considered, for while the country could get on without public works construction it could not without farm labour. But there is a good deal to be said for the unfortunate unemployed, fc>r t whom there seems to be bnt