The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1932. PARLIAMENT.

Evening Star, Issue 21219, 28 September 1932, Page 6

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1932. PARLIAMENT.

The Prime Minister is setting the pace for Parliament from barrier rise. Though the House rose before the supper adjournment last night, lor the future it will, if necessary, continue until midnight. The keeping of long hours is apt to produce frayed nerves towards the end of a session, shown by occasional loss of temper. The legislative programme does nob seem to warrant expectation of a long-drawn-out session, but possibly Ministers have been forewarned of possible obstruction when certain subjects come up for discussion. One of these is the administration of unemployment relief. Both the mover and seconder of the Address-in-Bcply referred to the waste going on. Mr in particular was outspoken enough to declare that in many cases the men were not earning even the small wages paid. Perhaps, though, it does not need much courage to make such a statement, seeing that it is admitted by relief workers themselves, freely and even defiantly. The matter cannot begin to be remedied until an end is put to the moral suasion brought to hear on a member of a gang showing signs of faking his job seriously. It appeal's also that there arc members who disapprove 1 of farmers getting labour at low cost to themselves, and to the State subsidising of the building trade. Admittedly, tore ase drawSato in .tot

not all participating as employers are in equal need of State help, but to make discriminations would involve examinations which would swell overhead costs unduly, and the importance of drafting tradesmen back to their proper callings outweighs such objections. Air Coates is not resuming the Employment Relief portfolio in the meantime. Doubtless he has seen or heard at first hand of the unemployment problem in both Canada and the United States. It is said that in the latter country there will probably be sixteen millions unemployed this coming winter. But it is unlikely that the Minister learned much of how to cope with such a tremendous task. The American authorities appear to have fallen hopelessly behind in the matter. Each city gives such work as road building to its own unemployed, and there is thus a huge hobo army, walking from town to town, backwards and forwards, for in no place is one allowed to stay more than three days. Nobody officially recognises their existence, everybody is sorry for them, but nobody is willing to do anything for fear of helping the inhabitants of another city or State which should look after them itself. The community chests of many towns are exhausted or becoming so. In one State those in charge of the chest, desiring to bo rid of some families originally from another State, had bought them old motors at 50dol, packed them in with their belongings, and had given them enough money and petrol to get them out of the State by a few miles, and so leave them to the tender mercies of the next State. Our own problem, bad as it seems to us, pales into insignificance compared with conditions in America.

It will be interesting to see what answer the Government will make to Mr Bodkin’s question concerning the construction of weirs on the outlets of Lakes Hawea and, Wanaka. Here is a really national work which ought to be developmental and reproductive in the truest sense, and which would absorb quite a fair amount of labour, besides making possible the placing of others on irrigated land with reasonable prospects of success. The attitude of the Public Works Department to this scheme is so far unknown, except that it is understood that the department was prepared to lodge objections in the event of private enterprise making application for leave to undertake it. However, the matter will now be put to the test. Behind him Mr Bodkin has the organised support of the local mining associations, and if the Government, which has paid attention to mining as a possible absorbent of unemployed men, is consistent it cannot discourage or ignore a scheme which should really mean the reopening of a proved field. The question doubtless hinges on the cost involved. The cessation of borrowing leaves the Public Works Fund practically without a feeder, and the reconditioning of Arapuni headworks has been a heavy and almost constant drain on it.