UNEMPLOYMENT AND RELIEF.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 5, 7 January 1931, Page 6

UNEMPLOYMENT AND RELIEF.

Yesterday the Chairman of the Auckland Hospital Board complained with good reason of. the heavy burden thrown upon the Board by the necessity for providing relief for the workless and destitute. The cost of relief to the Hospital Board for the first nine months jof the current financial year ' has already exceeded the estimate for the whole year by £5000, and Mr. [Wallace expects to see this total greatly increased by the end of March. But Mr. Wallace is hardly fair to the Government in suggesting that it has been either inefficient or neglectful of its duties'in this important matter. It is practically impossible to improvise any comprehensive scheme of public works that would absorb even a large proportion of the unemployed all at once, and could at the same time justify the necessary expenditure from the standpoint of national benefit. These things take time, and in our opinion the Unemployment Board has not yet had a fair opportunity to deal with the whole problem on a large scale. Certainly the workless should be employed, as far as possible, not on temporary or unnecessary schemes, but on reproductive undertakings likely to benefit the Dominion as a whole. But this is a counsel of perfection, and in the meantime the Board has to find employment as best it can for the maximum number of workers in more or less superficial and piecemeal fashion. With the return of Mr. Forbes we may hope to see the whole process speeded up effectually. Meantime, Mr. Wallace is perfectly justified in drawing attention to the heavy outlay by the Hospital Board on .relief, and in urging upon-the authorities the necessity for vigorous and far-rcaching action in handling this grave national problem.