SCHEME 5 DEFENDED

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXV, Issue 159, 21 June 1935, Page 5

SCHEME 5 DEFENDED

ATTITUDE OF BOARD “Not Unqualified Praise” STATEMENT BY MR. BROMLEY ‘Uy Telegraph—Press AssociaUM.l WELLINGTON, June 21. A statement as to the Unemployment Board’s policy in respect of Scheme 5 was made by Mr. W. Bromley, deputy-chairman of the board. He said, “The Unemployment Board’s attitude to Scheme 5 is not one of unqualified praise. It has never at any time regarded it as a system of employment that should be permanent, even as an expedient. “It is not regarded as an alternative to standard employment, but as an alternative to sustenance to the extent that work of some value, but not work that must or should be done under ordinary conditions, can be carried put by unemployed men in exchange tor the sustenance they receive. “The scheme contrasts more than favourably with payment of sustenance as a dole, or charity. It is at the point where local bodies have used, or are using Scheme 5 labour to carry out necessary and ordinary maintenance work that the Unemployment Board has interfered, and in preference has introduced sustenance.

“Local bodies, in co-operation with the Unemployment Board in the administration of Scheme 5, have been called upon to provide that portion of expenditure required for tools and supervision, amounting generally, in the type of work undertaken, to approximately 15 per cent, of the total cost of wo.k. That arrangement, from the local bodies’ point of view, is not at all bad just so long as useful work can be found. It of counts loses its value if useful work cannot be found. LOCAL-BODY GO-OPERATION. “It is not understood by me,” continued Mr Bromley, “that the reason for the decision of the Wellington City Council on Wednesday was prompted by inability to provide useful work. The decision arrived at, if ue exclude the suggestion that it was to embarrass thq board, seems have been prompted by the belief that it will compel the Government or the Unemployment Board to provide employment at full standard wages on fulltime work. “If full-time employment is to be provided for even a substantial proportion of those at present unemployed it can only be done by the fullest measure of co-operation between local bodies, the Public Works Department employers of labour, all citizens in a position to promote employment, and the Unemployment Board. Perusal of the Act being administered by th® Unemployment Board will reveal that there is no authority for the board to function as an employing authority beyond its own administrative needs. The procedure anticipated by the Legislature and also by the commission of inquiry from Ahoso report the legislation waa evolved was that the promotion of work should coma by the co-operation of the board with local bodies and employers of labour generally. BOARD’S LIMITATION. “The board’s contribution to employment, apart from promoting consideration of new work, is limited to the granting of subsidies or the making of grants or loans. For the past three years the board has devoted much time to the work of encouraging full-time employment, and subsidies on quite a liberal basis have been offered and given to local bodies, the Public Works Department, promoters of new industries and under building schemes. In this way a considerable number of men formerly on rational relief or sustenance have been enabled to rehabilitate themselves in normal employment. “If the board has experienced some little disappointment at the measure pf success achieved,” added Mr Bromley, “it has been more disappointed to note that very often the critic of Scheme 5 is the same person or organisation that criticises the board for making subsidies available as the price for promoting full-time employment at standard wages. “hi the matter of works organised through the Public Works Department the position has been even more difficult, for not only has the use of Hu Unemployment Funds for public works been attacked, but active organised opposition to the manning of the works has been undertaken by some of those who condemn Scheme 5. “The 35,000 men at present remaining on Scheme 5 or on sustenance are unemployed because private enterprise is unable to efaploy them profitably. In the wide fielJ of industry which is open to it, to suggest that the Government in the much narrower field of employment ascribed to it by popular opinion should provide full-time employment for all those not required by normal industry is indeed a tall orderbut to ask this of the Government and to deny it the co-operation of local bodies is simply impossible.”