THE UNEMPLOYED AND RELIEF.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 4 May 1927, Page 4

THE UNEMPLOYED AND RELIEF.

The fallacy of laying the blame of every case of hardship and misfortune at the door of the Government has been again exemplified by the reply of the Prime Minister to the representations made from Auckland on behalf of twenty-seven men who were said to be unemployed and in want. An Auckland newspaper reports that a few weeks ago a public-spirited resident of the northern city, who has interested herself in the unemployed in Auckland, brought under the notice of the Prime Minister the position of tw T enty-seven men whose cases were said to be typical of those who are suffering hardship on account of their inability to secure employment. Mr Coates’ reply states that of the twenty-seven men, only seven availed themselves of the Government’s invitation to report at the local office of the Labour Department, and of that number only one accepted the work which was offered to him—and he, it has since 'been learned, did not appear on the job found for him! This official statement, while it. docs not prove that there is no suffering in New Zealand as a result of unemployment, certainly does demonstrate the need for caution in accepting the statements of those who would, for political motives, make it appear that in this country there are conditions pf want and hardship which approximate those of the more densely populated places of the world and that it is all due to an iniquitous Government seeking to reduce the standard of living of the working man. The detailed report upon the cases of the seven men who were so greatly in need

of work that they thought it woTth

while to go along to the Labour Department’s office to ascertain what the Government could offer them, shows that most of them considered the Government’s relief scale of wages insufficient, most of them were getting casual work, and some at least of the applicants were not prepared to go away from home in order to secure employment. It may be presumed that the other twenty who did not bother to apply to the Department refrained for similar reasons. The deductions to be made from this statement are obvious and justified by the simple facts reported by the Prime Minister: though unemployment is rife and men with homes in the city cannot bo expected to go away for their work except as a last resort, the position here in regard to the needs of the unemployed is not comparable with the situation which would have to be met by those same men were they unemployed in England, for in this country the handy and willing man can pick up something in the nature of casual work; and, in the second place, the promptitude and thoroughness with which the Government investigated the cases referred to it through representations made to the Prime Minister by a private individual, disposes of the charge which is reiterated by those who are politically opposed to the party in power, that it is wanting in sympathy with the unemployed.