BALANCED LABOUR DEMAND

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 20, 24 January 1936, Page 8

BALANCED LABOUR DEMAND

A start has been made by the Minister of Labour with the investigation of one of the most perplexing problems of unemployment—how to reconcile shortage of labour in the farming industry with continuance of unemployment in the towns. For some months there have been complaints from farmers that they cannot secure all the labour they require. Yet there are over 40,000 men registered as unemployed and receiving assistance from public funds. No rough and ready generalisation can explain this seeming anomaly. It cannot be held to prove wholly either that relief conditions are too good, or farm conditions too hard. The out-of-work tradesman, for example, may have two good reasons for not taking farm work: that he would lose his chance of returning to his own trade because he *would be out of touch in the country, and that he would, for some months, be of comparatively little use to the farmer. Then there is the question of pay. Some farmers may be offering less than is considered reasonable, only because they cannot pay more. There are thus two parts to the problem: (1) to adjust the balance between farm labour and town labour; (2) to assure the payment of a reasonable wage for essential rural labour. The two parts of the problem dovetail, and cannot be completely solved separately. If a satisfactory wagepayment solution can be found, for example, farm-workers will return to the country from the .towns and townmen will consider it worth while to learn farm work. The conference with the Farmers' Union which was the starting-point of the Minister's investigation endeavoured, the Minister states, to come to a mutual understanding as to the provision that would be made for farm labour on the one hand, and on the other hand the extent to which the Unemployment Board could assist tha industry. The meaning of this is not clear, but it suggests an attempt to lay down a standard of "provision" (meaning, we assume, the wages to be paid, accommodation provided, and conditions observed), with a hint of an Unemployment Board subsidy in establishing such conditions. It may be necessary to adopt this method in the meantim« for the purpose of adjusting the balance of labour between country needs and town supplies, and as a way of tapering off the subsidised labour schemes hitherto in operation. Yet there is a danger in it, that the subsidy may become permanent and fanning be regarded as a "distressed area" of industry. It is easy to drift into such a condition until a labour subsidy actually becomes capitalised in the value of the land, as other forms of agricultural aid have been. There would be less objection to assistance which took the form of cheap loans to improve accommodation for rural labour. For this there is a precedent in both the general building subsidies and in the special scheme of subsidies for modernising dairy-farm building and equipment Whatever form the assistance may take, however, it should be clearly understood that it is not renewable from year to year, but is granted only until a more complete investigation reveals what permanent remedies should be applied.

We think it should be laid down also that the Unemployment Fund is a fund for special purposes, not intended either to subsidise farming or to afford relief when work under reasonable conditions is refused* We have emphasised on several occasions that'the employment of labour must be the prime consideration in authorising expenditure from the fund, and aid to industries from this fund is permissible only so far as it offers prospects of increasing employment. It is equally necessary, sincA the resources of the fund are limited, that care "should be exercised in extension of the benefit to unemployed workers. The Act at present allows widely differing interpretations on this point. Relief lo unemployed workers may ie withheld if they refuse employment which, in the opinion of the board, "would be suitable in its nature, conditions, rates of remuneration, and location." Obviously the board, if it wished to, could continue to pay sustenances to a man who refused work at any occupation but the trade in which he had been trained or in any place except that in which he was living. But such an interpretation would place an unbearable load upon the fund and would penalise unduly tho persons who pay taxation. It is not suggested that the board or the Government may at once go to such lengths as this; but if it is not careful it may create dangerous precedents. Tho issue, it appears to us, will arise when tho Government or (lie board is called upon to say whether the work offered in the country is suitable, or whether the unemployed may' refuse to take it and yet remain eligible for relief. Hard and fast conditions cannot be laid down, but vre think it is

reasonable to say that ike average conditions of rural labour are a fair guide to what may be demanded. l! would not be fair lo payers of wages taxation to require them to pay as they are paying now, or perhaps on a higher scale, in order lo enable others to refuse work at rales and under conditions no worse than those ruling for many of the taxpayers.