INQUIRY INTO DISTRESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 219, 16 September 1935, Page 6

INQUIRY INTO DISTRESS.

An opportunity for a thorough investigation of social conditions in Auckland is presented by the decision of* the Minister of Employment to have a special report prepared by the heads of the Unemployment Board. In this inquiry the Board should have the fullest co-operation of those familiar with local conditions. It will be easier to discover the extent and character of the present distress than to provide a remedy. Suggestions practical and impractical will doubtless be offered as a basis for action, and these will have to be weighed in relation to the funds available. At the outset it will be found that the problem really divides in two parts. There is, firstly, immediate and widespread need for the employment of as many men as possible on useful works at standard rates, and, secondly, the difficulty of ascertaining and removing causes of the present distress. Both these aspects were referred to briefly by the Archbishop at last week's meeting of protest 'organised by the Churches. Economic and industrial conditions have been rapidly changing, and on top of these changes have come disturbances more or less temporary which have narrowed the field of employment.

What the clergy do say is that hardship has been caused to many thousands of citizens throughout the country through no fault of their own, and they call for national remedies. An Auckland investigation should be valuable in enabling the authorities to come to grips with the problem in a particular area. It should also serve to test the possibilities of local co-operation. Unemployment administration has been too much centralised, and where local machinery for the dispensing of relief exists it is too fettered for those responsible to exercise initiative. Central control may have been necessary to secure uniformity in rates of pay, conditions and hours, but it has discouraged local effort. If the present move by the Unemployment Board is an indication that it realises the need for some decentralisation it is welcome. There have been signs of a desire to give more freedom to local bodies by the granting of subsidies in aid of wages, and there may be an extension of wage subsidies on local body works during the spring; also, public works activity may be speeded up.