THE GOVERNMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 82, 31 December 1929, Page 8

THE GOVERNMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT

As was .anticipated, finance has put a check on the Government s improvised plans for the wholesale relief of unemployment. Ihe Minister of Railways admits it in his statement regarding the dismissal of workshop employees. Mr. Taverner says the Government was “reluctantly compelled” to. dismiss, the men as no futt ei monev was available from the special fund. The cost of the palliatives adopted by the Government to deal with unemployment has been variously estimated at from two to three millions a year. It was obvious that the Treasury could not support such a drain indefinitely. Actually it has applied the brake after the Prime Minister’s special measures have been in force for only two months. Even so, the promise to place all unemployed men in work has not been redeemed. Instead there has been throughout even this short period of special effort an unabsorbed surplus bf over 2000 men. , . . It is plain that the Government’s policy in this' respect is in urgent need of revision. The first step should be to cease payment of standard wages on relief works. Labour would not. then be attracted from other occupations or settle down* on relief woiks as if in permanent employ. Instead men would register only as a last resort for subsistence and would be active to secure any other billets offering. That would end the diversion of farm labour of which there have been many complaints. The second step will not be so easy. It is to fiame and implement a constructive policy for the permanent cure of unemployment. The Government talks of settling idle lands and there is real hope in such a programme if actively carried forward. But it will not solve the whole problem. •. . The promotion of secondary industries offers a rich field. The Government can help by encouraging enterprise, by easing taxation, and by removing some of the irksome restrictions on indust.iy. Labour also can do its part by bringing the spirit of co-operation into the factories. Assured of a reasonably adequate and secu.ie return, Capital would rapidly do its part and the resulting industrial expansion would go a long way to absorb surplus labour.