UNITED STATES WORKLESS

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 24, 29 January 1932, Page 6

UNITED STATES WORKLESS

A request for "Federal relief for the unemployed by funds raised by taxation" has Been made by the presi* dent of the American Federation of Labour, Mr..William Green. The Washington cablegram conveying this news adds that the amount required to keep the United States unemployed "at bare subsistence level" is 3500 to 5700 million dollars. Does this mean that the Federation has at last decided to break thin ice by asking for "the dole"? Hitherto American sentiment has been averse to anything resembling the British system, but there is a point at which the unemployed may become so numerous that the organisation of suitable work t for- them, may' be beyond the capacity of local bodies, of State Governments, and even of a Federal Government. To find work that will not cost too much in material, work that is handy to where the unemployed live (or, alternatively, is adaptable to camping schemes),' and which at the same time is useful, permanent,.work—all this combination of virtues is not easy to secure." Afforestation—which the New Zea-, land. Forestry' League urges the Unemployment Board to put in the forefront .of its 1932 programme—is a generally suitable work, but as a ruie means camps. A study of what America has done to avoid'the dole should be helpful to New Zealand, and the further course of American relief policy (dole or no dole?) is of world-wide interest.