UNEMPLOYED RELIEF WORK

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 149, 21 March 1927, Page 3

UNEMPLOYED RELIEF WORK

« MR. HOLLAND REPLIES TO PRIME MINISTER By Telegraph.—press association. Westport, March 19. In replying to Mr. Coates’s statement on unemployment, Mr. H. E. Holland, Leader of the Opposition, yesterday said that Mr. Coates hid made no reply to his criticism that married men would not be able to maintain ordinary families on the relief work wage off'er- ‘ ed, nor had he attenuated to deal with the objection that the unemployed workers, who are members of unions with agreements providing standard rates, would be required to accept wages far below the agreement standards. The Government's defence that it was not in any way responsible for the causes which have led to unemployment was completely answered by the promises contained in its own election pledges, and in any case the plea of shrinking income did not seem to square with the Government’s lavish expenditure iu other channels and its still more lavish promises of future expenditure. • , The Prime Minister was quite entitled to ask for constructive and practical proposals from his opponents, notwithstanding that it was no part of an Opposition’s work to frame a policy tor a. party in office, and lie contended that his suggestion that the most urgently needed roads and railways should be put in hand at once and that the unemployed be given work thereon at standard wages was both constructive and practicable. Mr. Coates was making the mistake or regarding the unemployment problem as something of an evanescent nature to be met with a temporising policy, and he seemed th desire that the _ relief provided should be viewed in the light of charitable aid rather than the recognition of Die right to work and adequate remuneration for work done. From the circulars that were now being sent out to the retail houses by the wholesale firms urging the curtailment of credit it was clear that the latter recognised the serious nature of the present economic den ression.