DEPRESSED AREAS

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 November 1934, Page 7

DEPRESSED AREAS

BRITAIN’S NEW CAMPAIGN.

[BY CABLE —PBESS ASSN. —COPYEIGHT.] LONDON, November 14. In the House of Commons there was a debate on reports submitted by special investigators as to the conditions existing in the depressed areas. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Neville Chamberlain, said that the Government - had decided to appoint two Commissioners, with very wide powers, one for England and Wales, and also one for Scotland. The Commissioners would devote their time to the initiation, organisation, and prosecution of schemes designed to facilitate economic development and social improvement. These Commissioners would have the powei* to acquire land compulsorily' for these schemes of economic development. The most tragic feature in the depressed areas was the length of. time for which men had been unemployed. In South Wales, the percentage of the men who have been wholly without work for over three years is 35.3 per cent., and in Lancashire the percentage is over 30. Even if there was an immediate revival in the coal trade, there' must still be a considerable amount of unemployed labour. He had appealed to the employers in the more prosperous southern coal areas to give chances to the men from the depressed ayeas. The best hope for those men who could not be transferred lay on the land, said Mr Chamberlain. He would ask the House to vote two millions for the current year to a Depressed Area Fund. The Depressed Area Commissioners’ operations would begin immediately. Two Commissioners who had already been appointed insisted pn working voluntarily as a matter of public service. Mr G. Lansbury, Leader of the Opposition, said that the Government’s proposals for the depressed areas would in no way deal with the crux of the unemployment problem, which was due to the abundance of production. The school leaving age must be raised so as to fit children for reduced hours of work. There must also, be the retirement of workers at an earlier age on a decent rate of maintenance.

A GREAT EXPERIMENT. RUGBY, November 15. The Government proposals for the relief of distressed areas, which were recently investigated by the Commissioners, included measures for assisting former industries in these areas which have undergone severe setbacks. Two Commissioners, who are giving their services free, are Mr Percy Stewart, a well-known business man, who has always taken a great interest in the problems of unemployment, and Sir Arthur Rose, who recently carried out an investigation in Scotland for* the Government, and has had a wide administrative experience. Later, it was announced by Mr Oliver Stanley that arrangement had been made for local boards in the depressed districts to advance money on reasonable claims to distressed industries.

During .the cleaning-up debate, during which opposition criticism was directed to the proposals, on the grounds that., the scheme w r as inadequate, Mr Stahley said that it was a great experiment, which might succeed or might fail, but he believed it would succeed.