RAILWAY DISMISSALS

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 82, 31 December 1929, Page 10

RAILWAY DISMISSALS

STATEMENT BY MINISTER CURE FOR UNEMPLOYMENT By Telegraph.—Press Association. • Dunedin, December 30. When seen in connection with recent statements telegraphed from Wellington regarding the dismissal of casual employees from railway workshops, the Minister of Railways (the Hon. W. B. Taverner) stated that the position was that when the Government’s relief scheme was put into operation, last October the Railway Department was supplied by the Cabinet Unemployment Committee with extra funds, and was asked to place as many additional tradesmen as could be employed on necessary work. Some hundreds of men were accordingly taken on throughout the Dominion, and had been retained as long as the funds and work permitted. “Even now,” said the Minister, “only about half of the extra men have been discharged, at one (Stage it appeared that a number would have to be released about the middle of December. In view of the desii ability of keeping as many as possible in work until Christmas time, a special meeting of the Cabinet Committee was called on December 19 to consider the position, and the committee was able to arrange for the retention of the men until December 24, but was reluctantly compelled to issue instructions for -37 mei., who are distributed throughout the service, to be put off when that date arrived, as no further money was available from the special fund provided by the Prime Minister in connection with the scheme. A Difficult Period. “It is well known;” said the Minister, “that in common with railway systems throughout the world, our Department is nassin" through a difficult period of jts existence, and the task of re-orientating its services to meet the changing conditions in transport leaves no margin tor loading on to the Departments working expenses account a wages bill for sev eral hundred additional men. The special funds which were made available to the Department by the Cabinet Committee have been used up, and the work provided thereby has no doubt enabled a happier Christmas to be spent in many h °“lf S individual employers would recognise the real distress that it brings to the homes of working people, 1 do not see how they could fail to commence 1930 with a resolution to give employment to at least one more man. Such a movement would wipe out unemployment overnight. The Government has a duty to the community, and has demonstrated in a practical way its recognition of that duty, but the private employer has a less impersonal duty to his fellow-men, and the time is ripe for him to follow the lead of the Government in discharging his responsibility. There can be no doubt that there is a growing tendency for all classes to lean upon the Government in these matters and to mistakenly dismiss them as national problems with which the individual has no concern.” As a first step towards creating local interest in the problem, Mr. Taverner urged such bodies as chambers of commerce, manufacturers’ associations, employers’ federations, and others, to take the matter in hand during the New Year. He was confident that by that means, together with the assistance of the State, which could always take up the slack, real progress would be made in 1930.