PLISHED DAILY MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1929. A BIG PROBLEM CONFRONTING BRITAIN.

Gisborne Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 10811, 4 February 1929, Page 4

PLISHED DAILY MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1929. A BIG PROBLEM CONFRONTING BRITAIN.

It had been known for a long time that economic conditions in those localities affected by the mining slump in Britain were very unsatisfactory. Questionable, however, it is whether even the people at Home were so well-informed on this important matter as they are to-day as a sequel to the sad tour-under-taken by the Prince of Wales. What has been revealed amounts to g distinct blot on the British system of government. Earlier Home governments had been content to allow endangered industries to find some means of ensuring their own salvation. The Baldwin -government has not been quite so unfeeling as witness the help which it gave the movement to employ out-of-work miners at harvest work in Canada aim the encouragement which it Mint to the scheme to recruit young /lie workers in the mining areas for employment in other localities. For all that, the position now demands Sterner measure's of relief than have, .so far, been attempted. The system of “doles” has, no doubt, kept the wolf from many a door in the afflicted mining, towns and villages, hut relief of a much more permanent character relief in the shape of remunerative work of some ki fd or another—must be devised. m amounts to an extraordinary state iqf affairs when it is found that many 'miners can earn less to-day-than the =jum that would be paid over to them by way of the “dole,” if they remained oii the lists of unemployed. The plain facts now-are that it has been definitely ascertained t\\M, for. the future, the British milling industry will bo able to do jjFith at least. 200,000 fewer men. pb find new' avenues of employment , for so. many workers the aid of the State will, assuredly, require to be invoked in a much wider measure than.' has, so far, been the case. The ideal system would, of course, bo to make an arrangement for the transplanting of groups of the out-

jif-work miners in British lands overrrnore people. As it so happens, however, most of the Overseas Dominions have, at present, unemployment problems of their own and, much as they would like to be in a position to assist the Motherland, they are afraid that, thereby, they might still further aggravate the adverse circumstances in their own midst. The Prince of Wales’' tour wilt not be in vain if its disclosures spr the political conscience at'Home JF=j deeply ns they have stirred the Jpublic conscience not only in the Homeland but in the outlying portions of the Empire. It may take a lot of money to solve the problem, but the, position will require to be > faced and only progressive and sound statesmanship will enable, a satisfactory remedy to be provided.