OUR UNEMPLOYED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 183, 4 August 1932, Page 23

OUR UNEMPLOYED.

How is our urban population to be usefully employed again? Certain it i 3 that they will not be reabsorbed while exports are low and loans non-existent. Only two alternatives offer. Either our unemployed must get out of the towns and produce more commodities of which tho world seems to have a surplus, or we must save imports by making more of our own requirements. It is obvious that for many years imports will have to bo much lower than in recent years, and if we need the quantity of goods formerly used then we must make the balance at home. Many items we cannot possibly produce and must buy overseas, so that it will be necessary for us to conserve our funds in London for that purpose. The growth of manufacture will absorb some of our unemployed, and our 20,000 idle youths alone could be usefully employed making many things we must now import. Consider one avenue only. In 1930 we imported £482,403 worth of hosiery. It should not bo necessary to import one pound's worth, and £200,000 spent on wages would be a vast relief to our unemployment fund. Boots and shoes to the extent of nearly a million pounds came in in the same year, and with the exception of the amount spent on rubber shoes and boots, nearly the whole amount should be circulated in the Dominion. Made up garments ran into over two million pounds and at least a quarter of the total could be made here with quite an appreciable increase of employment. I am not a protectionist as I am aware that protection has its limits and evil effects. Its limits, I say, because no protection is proof against overseas borrowing, a habit, which is integrally associated with excessive imports. Its evils include the reducing of very desirable international trade, and our reduced exports are largely due to other nations' protective duties. On the other hand, if wo removed all duties we could not import one pennyworth more than wc do without borrowing to pay the bill. With the assured shortage of spending money for imports and a huge unemployed population it seen.'' reasonable to urge the use of these idle people in making the goods we can no longer afford to buy. m^ BAYSWATER.