WINTER CAMPAIGN FUND

Grey River Argus, 11 February 1938, Page 10

WINTER CAMPAIGN FUND

PLANNING NEEDED. During his visit to Southland last week, the Minister of Labour, the Hon. H. T. Armstrong, urged local bodies to organise for a larger proportion of winter work. Speaking at Gore, the Minister mentioned that 53 countries pooled their experiences of unemployment remedies at the world conference and adopted the principle of planned public works. Unemployment in New Zealand, he said, was now back to the pre-depression level as shown in the 1929 census, but unemployment here would always be higher in winter than in summer as in other countries but for different reasons. In some countries, said the Minister, the ground was frozen over in winter, thus preventing work. The New Zealand winter was relatively mild, but a larger proportion of New Zealanders were engaged in seasonal summer occupations. With the volume of necessary and useful work waiting to be done it should not be necesary for any fit man to go on sustenance. The Government was prepared to give generous subsidies on approved jobg if local bodies would plan winter programmes of works which would npt be undertaken without a subsidy. Mr. Armstrong spoke at a conference held in Dunedin to discuss the unemployment situation. He said there was a great deal of useful work to be done in New Zealand and this could be done by unemployed labour. It was, however, necessary to obtain the co-operation of local bodies in order that surplus labour, especially when seasonal occupations terminated, could be satisfactorily absorbed. One reason for his visit to Dunedin was to discuss this aspect. Men placed in employment by local bodies would be paid £4 a week from the Employment Promotion Fund. He hoped that the majority, if not all, unemployed men would be able to obtain work under the scheme. His department appreciated the co-operation it had already had from local bodies in this and all other parts of New Zealand. After the representatives of the various local bodies had placed their views before him, Mr. Armstrong expressed the opinion that the meeting would result in a better all-round understanding than had existed in the past. The men at present obtaining wqrk and being paid out of the Employment Promotion Fund, he said, were men who would not be working otherwise.

It had been thought that work under scheme -13 special, whereby the men were granted the £4 . subsidy, would terminate on January 29,- but it would now be carried on until at least March 31. When jobs at present being. undertaken by local bodies were completed, he hoped that those bodies would look round for other work. It was hard to get the number of men dependent on the fund established.

In the North Island over 1,000 men had been placed on the land development scheme, and they had converted waste land into valuable land, the Minister said. When that work was completed not very many of the men came back on the labour market, as they had taken over farms. Local county councils were doing necessary work in making roads into the backblocks. Unfortunately that was not winter work, and when seasonal occupations ended many men would be idle, and it would not be possible to put them on to road making. It was in this respect particularly that .the Government sought the co-operation of the local bodies so it could plan ahead.

Unemployment figures in New Zealand, the Minister continued, had shown a big drop, and there were now only 11,300 on sustenance. Of these 8,000 had been certified as unfit for any work at all. More than 13,000 men were in part and full-time work, dependent entirely on the fund. In New Zealand the unemployment problem was not so great as in other countries. With the co-operation of the local bodies the position should in time become very much easier. During the depression the last Government had received valuable help from local bodies in placing unemployed men, and this help was now being given his Government. He expressed, the hope that the efforts being put forward would ultimately result in a big improvement in the position.