PARLIAMENT

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 April 1936, Page 2

PARLIAMENT

DEBATE ON UNEMPLOYMENT

[per press association.]

WELLINGTON, April 17. Continuing the discussion on the Employment Bill, in the Housei ths afternoon, Mr. Nordmeyer said Labom candidates had said before the election, it would not be immediately possible to reduce taxation. In fact, he himself, had said it might be desirable.o increase it. He suggested that the Government should define cleanly’ men who should be a charge upon Charitable Aid Boards, and those who were a legitimate charge upon the Unemployment Fund. He suggested the Minister should undertake a comprehensive survey of the Dominion to see if work could not be found for partially disabled men. He also suggested that a short term of apprenticeship should be laid down for men who were over the apprenticeship age, and that they should then be classed as journeymen. Mr. Endean said the Government did not seem to realise that New Zealand was still controlled by world economic conditions. He said the British Government, when Miss Bondfield was Minister of Labour, spent huge sums on public works, but it was a failure and now New Zealand was following in Bondfield’s footsteps, and the result 'would be disastrous.

Mr. Wright said he could not see how the worker would get the full benefit of machinery, because machines were intricate and costly, but the Prime Minister might have some method for overcoming it. He considered the cause of unemployment, was largely due to the innate selfishness of people. and that people were looking after themselves. They had to regenerate human nature, and legislation could not do that. There were industries in New Zealand that could be developed and extended and could help greatly in lessening unemployment. Mr. Tirikatene congratulated the Government on the abolition of differentiation Detween Maori and Pakeha relief workers and appealed to the Government to do more for Maori women. to save them having to take work in Chinese market gardens. The Maoris in the past had not had the-chance the present Government was going to give them, the chance to rehabilitate themselves.

Mr. Clyde Carr said that the last Government made war on the poor, and on the unemployed, and then blamed the present Government, for not clearing up in live months, the mess they had taken .wars to make. The present Bill would to some extent start the unemployed on the road to prosperity, and would remove some of the barriers the late Government had created, mainly the Unemployment Board. The debate was adjourned.