UNEMPLOYMENT REPORT

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 142, 18 June 1930, Page 15

UNEMPLOYMENT REPORT

FARMER'S POINT OF VIEW. ACCEPTABLE—ON COSTDITIONS TAXATION "MOST DANGEROUS." (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, this day. "Tie scheme propounded by the Unemployment Committee set up by the Government ia one which merite full consideration," said Mr. W. J- Poison,. M.P., president of the New Zealand Farmers' Union, in his address at the Dominion Conference held in Wellington to-day. "The worker gets a weekly wage. He j cannot be reconciled to his position, because in the long run machinery cheapens the product, widens the number of buyers and so creates more employment. That is usually true, but the worker has to live in the meantime. His family want bread, and economic truths will not fill children's hungry mouths. "The reports of tne special committee show that it has, done a lot of thinking. Some people have criticised the report, but what must be recognised is that the committee had very limited material to work on and evidently wanted to make concrete proposals. My reading of the report has caused me to believe that unemployment as a problem has been insufficiently studied in its relation to the wider problem of the Dominion. Two Points Emphasised. "Two points needed emphasising —that of reducing the costs of production and that of reducing the costs of living. The report proposed to add to the burdens of the taxpayer by £1,000,000, to be raised hj an employment tax. The total value of production in the year 1927-28 was £121,000,000. Prices had fallen since then and possibly last year's figures of total production was about £100,000,000. Roughly, then, the financial burden of the committee's scheme represented an average of one per cent on production." Mr. Poison went on to refer to Queensland's experience in making sustenance payments to the unemployed, and he quoted a number of authorities to show that industry declines when burdened by "anti-social wage subsidies." Continuing, he said: "The cumulative effect of all the factors operating—-such as higher wages in town, shorter hours, the growth of retail profits, the uneconomic handling of our imports and exports at the minor ports and the protection by the Customs tariff of those industries which are lame ducks and will never be anything else—has been to draw workers from profitable occupations to those that can only be maintained by subsidies. It is here that the vital point of the problem fa to be found. The Unemployment Committee's conclusions on this point are undoubtedly sound. Increase in City Workers. Mr. Poison then pointed out the increase in those engaged in commerce and finance. In 189(5 the percentage was 11.57 and it had risen to 14.15 in 1926, an advance of 2.58 per cent of population. This percentage was, however, nearly a 20 per cent advance on the percentage of 1806. It was probably accounted for by the fact that more people went into retail distribution during the time of high prices.

The percentage in public administration and professional occupations had advanced, domestic and personal service had declined, but the unclassified class had advanced by over three per cent, while industrial population had advanced only H per cent. The census figures for New Zealand therefore revealed that that population was out of alignment for the main purpose of the Dominion's business —the production of exportable farm products. "Fundamental Errors." Mr. Poison said he regarded the Unemployment Commission's report as an honest and careful attempt to deal fairly with, the great problems. The disease, however, lay deejper than the commission had probed. He was, however, willr ing to let the commission's method be tried out—providing the scheme was part of a general scheme for taxation equilibrium aimed at the fundamental errors in the fiscal system. In such a case the farming community would willingly pledge it 3 credit to assist in abeorbing labour and relieving unemployment. Mr. Poison, however, thought the most dangerous plan of all was taxation. Recently he had pointed out how taxation readjustment»could be made to reduce costs, relieve unemployment and put the country back on the road to prosperity, and added that until the people and Parliament realised that one section of the community could not prosper at the expense of the other and began to recon- ; cile taxation to economic law things would not be mended in New Zealand.