MORE EFFICIENCY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 122, 26 May 1930, Page 3

MORE EFFICIENCY.

UNEMPLOYMENT QUESTION. MEMBER OF COMMITTEE ON CRITICISMS. DECREASING TAXATION. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, this day. A reply to criticisms ol the recommendations contained in the report presented by the Unemployment Committee was made on Saturday evening by Air. W. I). Hunt, a member of the committee, in a paper which he read at the annual meeting of the Economic Society. Mr. Hunt said the adverse criticism of the report had centred chiefly on the following three points:—The proposal to pay a sustenance allowance, or, as the critics sometimes put it, to introduce the dole into New Zealand; the proposal to pay standard wages on relief works; the new taxation proposals, which most of the critics referred to as a proposal to increase taxation. -First, let us consider the proposal for sustenance allowance/' Mr. Hunt said. "If the committee's proposals are properly carried out, there will not be many payments without some return in the shape of labour, because payments will only be made as a last resource if the proposed Employment Board fails to find anything for the unemployed worker to do. The main object of the proposed board is to find work, and, in doing this, one of its chief objectives will be to arrange as far as it possibly can for the spread of work throughout the year. Must Take Work Offering. '•Before any unemployed person can receive sustenance payments he will have had to register as requiring work. The Employment Board, through its organisation, will endeavour to find work for him, or, failing any regular work, will place him on any relief works that may ha\x to be started. The applicant for employment must be prepared to take any work that is offering. "If he is offered work and refuses to take it—and it is common knowledge that many are doing it at present—he_ will have'uo claim for sustenance payments. He will only have a claim if the board fails to find* employment of any kind, and then the payments are limited to 13 weeks in a year, which should see him through the winter period. "With regard to the proposal to pay standard wages on relief works, the only men who will be paid standard wages under the committee's recommendations will be competent workers, who are able and willing to do a standard day's work for a standard day's pay. To make sine there is no misunderstanding on the matter, the word 'competent 5 is put in italics in the report. To deal with the workmen who are not able or willing to do a full day's work, the committee recommends the establishment of training camps, which are really relief works under another name.

Paid According to Worth.' "All incompetent or unskilled unemployed workers will be placed in these training camps, and in these camps the rates of pay will be such as the Employment Board decides upon from time to "time. The only provision as to the rate of payment to these incompetent workers in the committee's report is that a worker employed in a training camp shall be paid not less than the sustenance payment. The rates lor males of 20 years and upward are 21/ a week, plus' family allowance where there is a dependent family. 'Tt follows that an incompetent worker in a relief training camp will be paid what he is worth, with a minimum of 21/ a week if he is a single man. '•'Then with regard to the criticism that the recommendations mean increased taxation. The recommendations do not mean any increased taxation. All that is proposed is to alter the system of taxation, which, it is confidently expected, will result in more efficiency and decreased taxation on the whole. "Under the committee's proposals only one-third of the money required to deal with the unemployment question would come out of the Consolidated Fund. The remaining two-thirds would come from the special tax proposed. Of this remaining two-thirds, five-sevenths would come from tho jcrsonal tax on everyone, and the remaining two-sevenths by a flat land and income tax. with a small contribution from the public bodies."