RELIEF FIASCO.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 39, 15 February 1935, Page 7

RELIEF FIASCO.

BRITISH SCHEME. RESIGNATION TALK. JVlinister Accepts Blame for "Dole Muddle." MR. STANLEY'S POSITION. (United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright) (Received 11 a.m.) LONDON, February 14. The representative of the "Sydney Sun"-"Melbourne Herald" news service says that as a sequel to the dole muddle Mr. Oliver Stanley, Minister of Labour, has offered to resign. Mr. Mac Donald has refused to accept the resignation, but Mr. Stanley may reoffer his resignation when the House of Commons passes the unemployment measures! Mr. Stanley admits that he, and not the Unemployment Assistance Board, is responsible for the fiasco. The "Daily Telegraph" political correspondent foreshadows a reversal of the Government's policy which placed unemployment relief under the Assistance Board. He says new legislation probably will result in putting the administration of State assistance und?r Ministerial , control. Labour's (fsnsure Motion. Mr. George Lansbury, moving Labour's eensurc motion in the' House of Commons, said- that despite the Government's optimism there was now onethird more people who had been unemployed over a' year than in 1031. The figures of pauperism had risen from 369 per 10,000 of the population in 1931 to 482, while outside of the poor law and unemployment insurance there had been increased unemployment of black-coated workers, which added hundreds of thousands to the total. ' As actually 2,250,000 were unemployed there ■ was no ground for the Government's claim of victory over unemployment. The Government had failed to recognise that the pre-ent economic System had broken down.

Mr. Lansbury criticised, in particular, the operation of the Unemployment Board, stating that a central bureaucracy had , been set up in such haste that neither those who framed it nor those who administered it really understood it. Hγ. Mac Donald and the Critics. The Prime Minister, Mr. Mac Donald, said it would be better if the Opposition, instead of criticising, -would co-operate ■with the Government in devising practical schemes to deal with the problem. The. Government would accept with alacrity any proposals provided they were definitely constructive. The Government aimed at getting the unemployed back into industry. Efforts had been made during the last few days to create a feeling of uncertainty, and statements were made without a shadow of foundation and apparently more for financial than for political purposes. He cited the continued expansion of the steel trade, and said that 1934 had been the best coal year since 1930. {The negotiations proceeding with other countries promised further reductions in the number of unemployed. Mr. O'Leary (Lab.), the victor in the Wavertree by-election, claimed that he •was returned as an expression of mass resentment at the Government's policy towards the unemployed. •

Muddled and Mishandled. Sir .Herbert Samuel said the Government had muddled and mishandled the ■unemployment' relief. Though Mr. Oliver Stanley had made a brave retreat the country felt thai the situation ehould not have arisen. The turning point in the fortunes of the Government came with the failure of the World Economic Conference. The President of the United States maimed it, but it was killed by the British Government's . declaration that whatever other countries did, Britain should maintain its'quotas and tariffs. ■

Within three years we had lost half of our foreign trade. The present rate of recovery would take 11 years to reach the 1929 level. Then the Government tried to cover its failure by a whole series of subsidies.

Mr. R. Bootliby (Conservative, Aberdeen) said that many Conservatives were definitely dissatisfied with the Government's lack .of action in the direction of the development of the Empire and Crown Colonies. The country wanted leadership and vision in the Government.

. The censure motion was defeated by 374 votes to 68.

1 Oliver Frederick George Stanley, Army officer and politician, was ■ born in 1896. He is the second son of the 17th Earl of Derby, the statesman who was Secretary for War in the last two years of the world conflict, and was later Ambassador in Paris. His mother was a daughter of the 7th. Duke of Manchester. Educated at Eton, he went straight into the Army on leaving that school, the war being then in progress. Serving with the Koyal Field Artillery in France, he was mentioned in dispatches, received the M.G. and the Croix de Guerre, and reached the rank of major. He afterwards studied law, and was one of those young officers, who, owing to their war service, were granted special privileges in the form *of reduced periods for qualification for the Bar. Before the end of 1919 he was a barrister. After only a short period of practice, however, Mr. Stanley turned to business in' the city, eventually becoming a stockbroker.

In the 1923 elections he was Conservative candidate for the Edgehill Division of Liverpool, with which his family was linked through his father's large possessions in Lancashire. He was defeated, but a year later was returned for Westmorland. In the next few years he proved himself to be a clear-headed and sound debater, possessed of a "firet-class Parliamentary manner." On the formation of the National Government in August, 1931, Mr. Stanley was made Under-Secretary at the Home Office, in which position he displayed administrative ability well above the average. In February, 1933, he was appointed Minister of Transport in succession to Mr. Pybus, and later Minister of Labour. Mr. Stanley married Lady Maureen Stewart, a daughter of the Marquis of Londonderry, Minister of Air.