LIVING TOO HIGH

Evening Star, Issue 19533, 14 April 1927, Page 4

LIVING TOO HIGH

MINISTERS MEET LABOR DEPUTATION NOT HOLDING UP WORK FOR CHEAP LABOR £Peb United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, April 13. Au Alliance ot Labor organised deputation waited on tho Hon. J. G. Coates and tho Minister ot Labor (Hon. G. J. Anderson) to-day and. raised the questions ot unemployment and immigration. Mr B. Davidson, general secretary of the united mining workers of New Zealand, claimed tiiat the Government’s immigration policy .was directly responsible for unemployment, and urged its abandonment. The postponement of works not immediately necessary, with the object of bringing them on at a slack period, and performed at a cheap rate of relief pay, were charged against the Government by the secretary (Mr J. Roberts). Ho urged standard rates of pay for relief works. In his opinion the importation of timber from tho United States of America was economic suicide. The deputation, ho said, wanted the Government to assist the conference in organising a bureau, so that the unemployed could bo assured of work at trade union rates of pay. The Hon. G. J. Anderson, replying, expressed astonishment that the Government should be blamed for unemployment. He emphatically denied that the Government was postponing work in order to get it done cheaply later. If the standard rates of pay were given for relief work tho workers would not seek work elsewhere. The object was to provide the men with food and shelter until they secured some better position of a permanent nature- Ho trusted that tho country was a long way from giving out doles. There was a general cry of protest from tho deputation when Mr Anderson suggested that everybody was living higher than ho should. The Prime Minister’s reply was subjected to several interjections. The difficult question of unemployment, he said, was • exercising the mind of Cabinet Ministers day and night. He affirmed that tho last thing the Government wanted to do was to lower tho standard of living. If we were to expect better times we must have more people, more industries, and more encouragement for them to develop alongnatural and sound lines.