CURING UNEMPLOYMENT

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXI, Issue 303, 7 December 1931, Page 7

CURING UNEMPLOYMENT

UNITED STATES PANACEA. TEN-POINT PROGRAMME. New York, Nov. 11. Ten methods which may be adopted to reduce unemployment are submitted by President Hoover’s national committee appointed to advise in that direction. The committee, in a comprehensive report embracing all industry, traverses the field regarding credit relief, the spread of work, the Civil Service, aid for “white collar” classes, community surveys and farm labour. The first recommendation by the committee furnished the basis for its 10point programme. It set forth the following deduction:—“The manufacturer and the distributor who curtail operations, in anticipation of decreased business, insure such decrease; the capitalist and investor who practises unnecessary rigid economy through fear of further loss of income, by his action contributes to decrease the value of his investment and the income derived therefrom; the worker who. curtails expenditure to barest necessities for fear that his current employment may be temporary, contributes definitely to the loss of his job.” The 10 points are: — 1. —Every citizen to be encouraged to resume normal buying of goods and necessities in the replacement of which labour is employed. 2. —Restore money withdrawn from banks or circulation, to re-establish confidence in financial and credit structures. 3. —Bankers are urged to assume a liberal and encouraging attitude toward credit requirements of the averago customer. 4. —Spread available work in indus trial, commercial and profession enter prises as tho most fruitful field for immediate unemployment relief. 5. —Public .servants —Federal, State and local—should share hours of work or contribute financially to the general objective of reducing unemployment. 6. —All possible additional employment represented by public works, already authorised find appropriated for. should be made available. 7. —ln the spread of work, part-time employment should be made available to the “white collar” class, male and female, whose distress is far more acute than that of the industrial worker. 8. —ln making effective the spread of employment, consideration should be given by every unit of industry to the capacity of each individual employee for self-selp and to his personal and community responsibilities. 9—Community and district surveys should bo Undertaken to determine the extent of work made available, whether of industrial, civic or private origin and to allocate such work to best advantage with other local relief efforts. 10.—As a special winter emergency, a survey should be made of the possibility for transfer of surplus labour from cities to farms on a “work-for-keep” or other basis.