TO RELIEVE STATE

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 103, 25 January 1933, Page 10

TO RELIEVE STATE

Move to Ease Burden of Unemployment ACTIVITY IN BRITAIN (Reuter —Letter from London.) London, Dec. 10. In Englund private individuals, associations, and municipalities appear to be feeling more and more that it is their business to tackle the problems of finding work and relieving the unemployed instead of leaving it to Government action and hoping for the best. Torquay, in Devon, decided to make a trade revival of its own. So during the past twelve months it has spent nearly £lOO,OOO on improving its attractions as a watering-place-The scheme has proved thoroughly successful, providing work while in progress and attracting visitors who give the townspeople more work now that it is finished—and another scheme of the same kind is being considered. Then there is Ipswich, in Suffolk, where workshops are being built for the unemployed, and a fund raised, while citizens have adopted the slogan: “Everybody who is employed should do something definite for every man, woman and child who is, a victim of unemployment.” Rural settlements have been established in one or two places to enable workless men to carry out useful tasks, and a series of regional conferences organised by the National Land and Unemployment Council to promote the placing of more unemployed men on the land is being held. . In South London a scheme for providing physical training and occupation for the unemployed is being brought into operation; arrangements are on foot for a similar scheme for North London, while a third organisation —for East London —will afterward be developed. Gift from the King. The Personal Service Legion—to wlilett the King has just given £loo—is making the greatest efforts to relieve dir tress in the areas where unemployment is worst. The Duke of Westminster has lent the league No. 38 Grosvenor Place, S.W., and gifts of material are sent there from every part of the country—material to enable the league to carry on its work of providing the workless with clothes. ’ Warm blankets, children’s clothes, and men’s pullovers, are made from the hundreds <of balls of wool received. The utmost ingenuity is used to see that absolutely nothing is wasted, and during the past twelve months, 15,000 people have been benefited by the league. Another scheme already in full swing is the giving of a number of plays all the year round from which the profits go to the unemployed. The Archbishop of Canterbury is giving his support to this arrangements. . Great Self-Help Scheme. At the same time a great “self-help” scheme for the workless has been outlined by Professor Miles Walker, president of the engineering section of the British Association. The professor told a conference on unemployment organised by the Production for Use League, that: "The main purpose of the scheme is to provide good homes, food, clothing, furniture, fuel, education, and amusement for those who are at present unemployed. These people are a potential market for all these things. They can, under proper direction, make these things for themselves, and become almost entirely self-supporting. “For instance, why should not some of the cotton operatives belonging to mills in Lancashire at present shut down, make cotton goods for the 2,500,000 unemployed, and in return receive houses, food, furniture, and fuel from the rest of the unemployed? Why should not some of the miners belonging to mines which are at present shut down hew coal for those now. unemployed and receive commodities in return? “There are thousands of acres in the colonies and in this country untilled because the farmer cannot sell his own corn and potatoes. We have only to put labour on this land and direct it aright to get a great part of the food required; and so with the other things- “ There is no doubt that money would have to be lent by the Government in the first instance for capital exjienditure, but under proper Parliamentary powers this need not be excessive. The organisers of the scheme should have power to take over on loan mills and land standing idle, with little immediate recompense to the owners; or arrangements . could be made with manufacturers whose factories are not working at full capacity. “As the scheme got properly going the production of wealth would be so great that the community .could pay off borrowed capital. Moreover, the saving in unemployment benefit could in part be given into a sinking fund.”