UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF.

Evening Star, Issue 20049, 14 December 1928, Page 6

UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF.

Sir Joseph Ward has not been slow in. showing his concern for and his desir© to alleviate the condition of unemployment which still makes a dark cloud for too many in New Zealand. That trouble had been normally regarded as merely seasonal and spasmoclio at the worst in this naturally favoured country, but it has changed its character in the last few years. Unemployment is usually smallest at this season, but the coming Christmas will be the third over which its shadow has extended, making its cordial greetings a vain wish for unfortunate victims. Not much is heard of it for weeks at a time, because the trouble is too constant to be dealt with by public subscriptions, found hopeless as a remedy Jong ago; but the hearts of those who seek work and are unable to find it

know their own bitterness,- and it is small comfort to them to be told that in every other country the evil is worse. One of the first statements of the new Prime Minister waa that he would, authorise an amount to be spent to tide over the sharpness of unemployment in the chief centres, and there will be no lack of applications for that assistance. Distress has been leas in Dunedin than in the northern cities, but the number of unemployed hero is still painfully large, swollen by men who have been paid off from the Blue Mountains forestry work, which could be the harshest provision for them while its season lasted. The Dunedin City Council has not lost time in applying for its share of the Government grant, nor is it probable that it could do much without it, having spent much itself at an earlier' time in alleviation of the need that still continues.

Sir Joseph Ward returned to the question in his speech in introducing his Finance Bill last night. He asked the House for £400,001! for relief work, and the men who are at present on public works will be put on the railway construction work which he is anxious to accelerate. They will not all bo the best workers (or that purpose, but something must be done for their plight. When the most has been done, however, not ail of the men who are workless can be employed by Mr Ransom’s department. The cities must co-operate, ami there must be also expansion of private industries so that those may do their share. A suggestion of Mr Wiltord in the last Parliament was that every Minister should devote himself to his own particular scheme in his own department to bridge over the worst times of unemployment. which affects many more than the physically strong. Sir Joseph Ward proposes to pay the full rate, .to married and single men alike, to those in the latter category who are employed on Government relief works, and ho is asking local bodies to do the same. In that he is more generous than his predecessor; the future will show if he is more wise. Cases have been quoted in which the rates of 9s and 12s a day, with time broken for bad weather, have been no more than a bitter mockery for men with dependents, but there are dangers in paying the full rate in every case. If it is found in practice that the effect of that is to draw men from Aus l tralia, which has its own unemployment problem, to New Zealand, or to cause a rush to relief works of men who might think they would be working harder in other employment not impossible for then, to find, Sir Joseph will he ready, no doubt, to revise his policy. Unemployment should be ending in this country now that its first cause lias ended and the balance of trade for months has been on the proper side. It may well he that what protracts it is not depression, but an over-timidity on the part of employers and others, born of past experience of over-rashness, which prevents them from spending what they could afford to do. A new outlook and a new confidence a.re needed which will make development once* more the watchword, providing new avenues for employment in both town and country, and that Witlook is most likely to bo encouraged by the advent of a new Government, with its programme designed to stir up the stagnant pools.