UNEMPLOYMENT.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20829, 12 April 1933, Page 12

UNEMPLOYMENT.

LABOUR'S SOLUTION. ADDRESS BY MR H. E. HOLLAND. (PHESB ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.) OHAKUNE, April 11. Speaking at a crowded meetihg here to-night Mr H. E. Holland. Leader of the Opposition, devoted a large part of his speech to the unemployment problem in New Zealand. He claimed that, including women and girls and boys under 20, there were 120,000 unemployed in this country. This number, he predicted, would be increased to 150,000 before the winter was over. He declared that it was unfortunate that Parliament had adjourned without making provision for additional finance to meet this inevitable increase in the numbers of unemployed which would follow the close of seasonal occupations. The Labour party's proposals to cope with the problem, said Mr Holland, included a comprehensive public works scheme and primary ana secondry industrial development, with guaranteed prices for the primary producers and standard wages for the workers He also advocated shorter working hours to meet the unemployment caused by inventions and the continued introduction and improvement of labour-displacing machinery. He dealt exhaustively with the questions of currency and credit, declaring that if necessary the Labour party In office would provide for an additional issue of legal tender currency. He did not think, however, that any very great amount of this would be required since, if the unemployed were absorbed into industry and placed on works of economic value, the restored velocity of circulation of the existing legal tender and cheque currency that would result would represent a substantial increase of the money used in the exchange transactions of the Dominion. whatever new money was issued would be regulated strictly in line with the increased production of goods and services, and care would be taken that it should go into immediate expenditure and not into the vaults of the banks or the pockets of the bondholders and money speculators.

STRIKE OF RELIEF WORKERS. (PItESS ASSOCIATION TZLEGBAM.) WELLINGTON, April 11. The presence of two men who have worked during the season at the freezing works and were styled free labourers by men on the job was responsible for the strike of 100 relief workers at Southern Crescent this morning. The men approached the Unemployment Bureau and were sent back. Officials who went to the job were asked to transfer the men elsewhere, but this was refused. On other jobs similar complaints were made, but the men continued at work pending an instruction from their union. It is stated that 125 men who were employed at freezing works during the season are now drifting back to relief jobs owing to the approaching close of the freezing season.

SETTLEMENT SCHEME. (PBESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM." WELLINGTON, April 11, A deputation from Hawke's Bay centralised relief workers waited on the Unemployment Board to-day and expressed appreciation of the promptness with which the Government had taken up the Napier village settlement scheme. The board expressed its sympathy with the scheme and appreciation of the manner m which the deputation had stated its case. The Mayor of Christchurch (Mr D. G. Sullivan, M.P.) intends at an early date to call a public meeting of citizens to discuss the Unemployment Boards questionnaire.