The Dominion TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1931. RURAL WORK FOR UNEMPLOYED

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 288, 1 September 1931, Page 8

The Dominion TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1931. RURAL WORK FOR UNEMPLOYED

General approval will be given, to the Unemployment Board's adoption of a general policy to divert relief expenditure into more productive channels. It is true that the old board endeavoured to devise schemes to implement a similar policy but not as much was accomplished as might have been. The trouble was, cf coarse, that the problem grew so rapidly and immediate calls demanded so much attention that the board had little time for constructive planning. The new board has the advantage of a. clearer start, including working schemes that will serve a turn until something better can be substituted. That it has the will to improve on existing methods —for the most part palliatives and makeshifts—is indicated by its policy announcement. Where there is a will to productive effort, there should surely be found ways. Not that the task will be an easy one, because it is one thing to state an ideal and another to work it out. s

As a first instalment of its new drive the board proposes to establish camps in the country for single men who will be engaged on work of a developmental character, such as breaking in land or improving backblock roads. The first class of work should prove directly productive and the second indirectly so. Thus, in a small way. perhaps, but nevertheless sound, the board will be broadening our economic base, adding new productive units and creating new permanent jobs, and so making a real contribution toward overcoming the unemployment difficulty. Whether this camp scheme achieves a real measure of success will largely depend on the administration. For one thing it will probably cost more, man for man, than rationed work under No. 5 scheme. But if the country is getting value for money, increasing its assets, the extra cost will be worth while. Nevertheless some ticklish questions of organisation, feeding, housing, supervision and discipline will have to be answered and possibly a weeding-out process undertaken. But the scheme should not only relieve local bodies of a burden they cannot carry much longer but may also help the board by providing a test of the good faith of some of those who register. If single men are not ready, without very good excuse, to go to a camp, they should forfeit all claim to jobs on urban works or sustenance from hospital boards. ■ This camp scheme, or a variation of it, might be applied to doing preliminary work on abandoned farms of which there are estimated to be 400 in various parts of the Dominion. The previous board had a plan, although it apparently did not carry it out, for the rehabilitation and settlement of these farms by unemployed men. It might be worth considering camping single men on these properties to remove the rough, preparatory to settling those destined to occupy them permanently. In any case the board should study tlie possibilities as being, superficially at least, more promising than breaking-in new country.

Even more important from a national and, in fact, from even' point of view is to keep those already farming on the land. It would not be comnionsense to busy thousands of men in making new farms or reclaiming abandoned ones, mostly comprising marginal lands, while for lack of the labour the board could provide existing holdings were allowed to go back. It is better policy to keep farmers on the land than to provide work for them when forced off it. For that reason the board should revive the old 4a and 4b schemes and devise others that will lend the farmer the helping hand he sorely needs. Local committees could no doubt easily be found to guard against abuses or exploitation and to give aid where without it production is flagging or failures are imminent.