A LACK OF CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 62, 10 September 1921, Page 4

A LACK OF CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM

The Labour deputation that complained yesterday to the Government about unemployment did not contribute much in the way of constructive criticism ; in fact, if suggestions involving action by Parliament are excluded, the deputation contributed no constructive criticism whatever. It neither praised nor condemned the current proposals for raising employment funds by gifts and by loans; and to these it offered no constructive alternative that can be said to be within the Government's administrative power. Instead, the political propagandist instinct of the deputation plunged it at once into the Parliamentary sphere, and it proposed to raise employment funds by special taxation of wealth and of land (including a| betterment tax) and by the establishment of a State bank, the latter being apparently regarded as a key to credit and loanflotation. In Parliament, it would have been quite relevant to propose legislative measures of this nature, and Parliament is the place in which the Labour members are free to put their case. They have two sessions within which to convince the present Parliament that political salvation lies along the lines of higher taxation of land and wealth ; and, after that, if Parliament remains unconvinced, they have the ballot-box as^a democratic machine in which Parliament can be transformed into, a body of their own colour. But the ultimate ' possibilities of this political vista did not constitute the proper business of the deputation received yesterday by the Acting-Prime Minister. The issue was not what Parliament might do some time, but what the Government' should do now. And in this matter the deputation gave Ministers no help, and quite failed to- give the public any ground for hoping that, administratively speaking, a Labour Cabinet could handle the present situation better than, the by no means over-brilliant Reform Cabinet. • . The Acting-Prime Minister, we think, pushed somewhat too far the principle of local bodies' responsibility for relief of unemployment and housing. Local liability is ' a good principle,' but local credit is not equal to State credit; therefore there is a moral obligation on the Government to assist local bodies' credit. That the Acting-Prime Minister admits this obligation is proved by the fact that in his ad-' dress he claims praise for it—so far as "the smaller local authorities" are concerned. But, if the Government praises itself for advancing money to the smaller local bodies, thus reducing unemployment, can the Govei'nment consistently say that it fia.s not an obligation towards a municipality like Wellington, whiuh, ah P. national port- and clearing-house, is burdened with a

floating population, and with far more than the normal residential volume of unemployed; and which, moreover, is not assisted, as is the Auckland district, by the employment of about a thousand men on Government railway construction works? This special disability falls on a city that has abundant assets but temporarily limited credit, and that is willing to meet its unemployment liabilities if money can be borrowed. Surely, then, the Government cannot repudiate its obligation—not to give this city cash, but to assist it in raising cash—by a mere enunciation of the principle of local responsibility which may be relevant to the question of liability but not to that of finance. Of course, it may be said that if the municipality had managed its credit better, it would not now be in need; but whatever justice there may be in this accusation appears to apply with double force to the Government itself. And the Gov-j ernment's own dismissals, made at the seat of Civil Service administration, are no email contribution to this city's problem of unemployment. As to the/ frictions raised by the deputation, they are- merely waste heat. The Acting-Prime Minister ■ was justified in demanding that Mr. Young's allegations about unemployment and immigration should be specific. Mr. Young is reported as stating that, in proportion to population, unemployment is as bad in New Zealand as in England. But about a week ago another prominent Labour man, Mr. Croske'ry, told the Arbitration Court that " there is little unemployment in New Zealand," also-jjhat "there is no great unemployment in New Zealand—nothing like what we hear of from Australia." Both these Labour statements cannot be true. The best way to bring home to ,the public the gravity of the case is not to quote vague figures in which unemployed and unemployable intermingle. A few concrete cases of genuine hardship, like the four cases quoted by Mr. T3. Mitchell, M.P., constitute a far stronger appeal to public consideration, and we hope that they will move the Government and the public to look with practical sympathy on the loan movement and on the subscription campaign of the Civic League.