Unemployment.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20415, 9 December 1931, Page 10

Unemployment.

An Auckland telegram yesterday reported Mr Coates's reply to a deputation of members of Parliament, who had asked him what would be done, first to tide unemployed men over Christmas and then to find them permanent work. He promised a statement on the first point at once and within a fortnight an estimate of the number of men who may be placed in industry by plans now being prepared. The whole community will desire the Minister and the Unemployment Board to provide as much temporary relief at present as they can, while prudently regarding the extent of their funds and the nature of their more constructive plans; but the worst thing to do would be to cramp the scope and endanger the success of really useful measures by scattering the money in showers that will at once dry up. Unfortunately, it is impossible to read the Minister's remarks except as ci warning of this danger, though it is of course not unfortunate but very necessary that the danger should be appreciated. He said that the Board's income, estimated at the rate of £50,000 a week, was in fact less; it ib not at all unlikely to be a good deal less and to be diminishing. The Board tnußt therefore be exceedingly cautious. It cannot afford to be open-handed, because it cannot afford to weaken its own power to do lasting good, and to do it without making fresh demands on the taxpayer; but the Board and the Minister can exert themselves to hasten the execution of the policy adopted I when the Coalition was formed. If they speed up, the programme of land settlement and increased production, to the rate of .maximum usefulness, they will be doing by far the most important part of their job. The slower they are with it, and the more they subtract from its essential financial support, the greater will be the risk of 'failure on the one hand or of further taxation on the other; and that is the risk of alternative disasters.