UNEMPLOYMENT POLICY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 243, 15 October 1931, Page 6

UNEMPLOYMENT POLICY.

Labour comments on Mr. Coates' unemployment scheme are depressing. We are told that something' constructive is needed. Surely the proposals to open up Crown land, to improve existing farms, and generally to put unemployed on productive work, instead of letting them waste money in piffling work about city streets, are constructive. It is the Labour critics who are not constructive. There is a reference to the Consolidated Fund. Is it not time that men got rid for good and all of the idea of the Consolidated Fund as an inexhaustible spring in the garden of the Treasury? The country, we feel sure, is tired of this destructive criticism, tired of this continual appeal to unrealities. While not throwing up its hat about the proposals, it welcomes them as an honest and promising attempt to deal with a difficult problem. But it expects expedition. The more one sees and hears of relief work in the cities, the more one is convinced that there is . deplorable waste. This labour must be diverted. Farmers must be encouraged to employ more men. Camps must be established, where workers will be kept in decent, conditions and subjected to a reasonable amount of discipline. There must be no repetition of the conditions at Hill Top, Canterbury; on the other hand, the State is entitled to require a return for what it provides. The Government has all the material and personnel necessary to establish and manage such camps, and should draw freely on them without delay.