SUBSIDISED WORK

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 137, 6 December 1930, Page 8

SUBSIDISED WORK

To assist in relieving unemployment the practice of subsidising expenditure has been freely adopted, but hitherto subsidies have been available only for public authorities. In principle, the system has been largely a decentralisation and cooperation plan, with the local authorities responsible for initiating and directing the efforts, and the Central Government assisting them with money. It has been more successful than if the Central Government had'undertaken the whole responsibility and placed all the unemployed on national works. • Now, however, the Unemployment Board has made a departure by offering the subsidy to private employers. We do not wish to condemn this decision. It has been made, we feel sure, because the board is anxious to find new opportunities for employment before Christmas, and it cannot in that time perfect other and more permanent plans. But the objections to the adoption of this as a permanent practice must be pointed out. It means subsidising some industries and some employers at the expense of all. Farmers who complain of the burden placed upon the community by tariff protection must recognise that this direct subsidy would have an even more burdensome effect. It would, moreover, be more difficult to control, as no clear limit could be set to the subsidy. If farmers were entitled to it for development work in clearing land, why should builders not have it for development in building, and manufacturers for development in their industries? As a temporary measure, limited in its scope, the practice is not open to the same abuse—if the safeguards proposed by the Unemployment Board are applied. The most important of these safeguards are local supervision of the grants and public notification of the works approved for subsidy. These means should be reasonably effective in preventing improper use of the subsidy by employers who are well able to pay for the work done, and are merely taking advantage of the subsidy to enrich themselves at the public expense. The local committees, however, will need to investigate fully all applications for grants, and therefore each committee should be responsible only for a small area. Would it not be possible for such committees to be formed to control subsidised relief work for the public benefit? In Wellington there arc many active local associations, well acquainted with the needs of iheir dislrict. If these drew up plans for street cleaning, beautification, park and playground formation, and soi

on, they could, we believe, collect part of the cost from the residents who would benefit, and employ a great many subsidised workers. Even the residents of a single street, for example, might club together to carry out some work of mutual benefit. The individual expense would not be great, and this method of employing subsidised labour would not be open to the objections which apply to subsidising work done for private benefit.