The Hawera Star. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1931. GAPS IN THE UNEMPLOYMENT ACT.

Hawera Star, Volume L, 27 February 1931, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1931. GAPS IN THE UNEMPLOYMENT ACT.

Delivered every evening by 5 o’olook in Hawera, Manaia Kaupokonui. Otakeho, Oeo, Pihama, Opunake, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Ngaere, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Awatuna, Te Kiri, Mahoe, Lowgarth, Manutahi, Kakaramea. Alton, Hurleyville, Patea, Whenuakura, Waverley, Mokoia, Wbakamara. Ohangai, Meremerc, Fraser Road, and Ararata.

The resignation of tiie Auckland Un employment Committee draws attention anew to certain obvious crudities id the Unemployment Act. The northern committee resigned because it suffered severely under a sense of frustration, due to the inadequate machinery set up under the Act for dealing with this grave problem. This committee, like similar committees in other parts of the country, has found that though tho Government has evolved a series .of schemes for the purpose of providing 1 temporary employment for the work'less, it has not provided the machinery [for carrying out its schemes. It has said, in effect, “We shall provide subsidies for work finder certain conditions, but it is for the public to find the organisation which will bring the unemployed into touch with prospective employers.” As the country now knows, this organising entails an immense amount of work on the part of a few public spirited individuals and also entails the expenditure of a certain amount of money. When asked where was the money to cover administration costs to come from, the Government at first preserved a discreet silence; later, when pressed on the point, it announced that that was the public’s responsibil-1 ity. It is quite true that ordinarily this country is over-burdened Government regulations and that the public! has been taught to lean too heavily upon Government assistance. But in this particular the Government has gone to the other extreme, leaving too big a gap between the point where its responsibility ends and the responsibility of the public begins. The Government seems to forget,' when it talks glibly about the duty of the public, that “public” is a very vague term; in this instance it seems to mean any private individual who, out of his humanity and means, is willing to assist; so far as the rest of the public and the Government itself are concerned, it appears to be a case of each looking at the other and saying “they really should do something about it” —anil, of course, neither is very clear as to whom it means by “they” except that it knows it is somebody else. In Auckland the committee has grown “fed-up” and has resigned in a body. It cannot prevail upon the Government to organise unemployment relief work on a businesslike basis throughout tho province, so that it can be allowed to deal with tho problem in the city; it cannot persuade the Government that the work calls for the devotion of one man’s time to it, and it cannot make the Government apprcciatrthat there is anything stupid about a situation winch calls for these unpaid helpers of tho Government to _ pay. through post and telegraph charges, for the privilege of working for nothing. The absence of any machinery at this end of the Unemployment Act is the strangest piece of Government evasion of duty that this country has seen. If the Government really thought that we as a people were becoming* too supine and that it was time we were thrown on our own resources, it could surely have chosen some other quarter to experiment, upon. Fortunately for the unemployed in and around Hawera. and fortunately for the pride and peace of mind of this community, there lias been no slackening of effort, on the part of those who undertook the work locally. These few persons are performing a work that has placed tho unemployed, the town, and more particularly the Government, under a deep debt of gratitude and appreciation. Like the Auckland committee, they have had to resort, to strange ways of finding the money wherewith to carry on, even to the extent of paying out of their own pockets. So far they have managed to carry on without a threat of being arraigned on a charge of using cancelled stamps or resorting to. any other devious ways of helping the Government out of its dilemma —and with never a hint of resigning! i