UNEMPLOYED

Hokitika Guardian, 24 September 1937, Page 6

UNEMPLOYED

STATEMENT BY MINISTER.

(Per Press Association—Cooyrigat)

WELLINGTON, Sept. 23,

“The Government is not satisfied with all it has clone to improve the lot of the unemployed,” said the Minister for Mines (the-Hon P. C. Webb, during the Address-in-ifeply debate in the House of Representatives to-night. tMr 'Webb, who was acting as Min'iste* for Labour during the absence of tin Hon H. T. Armstrong, said that the Government would like to do a io more than it had done, and intendec. to do so.

The Government’s job, said the Min ' ister, was not to keep men on sustenance but to use their labour to creat. values. A man on sustenance was a drone on society, and the policy of the Labour Department was to get such men into useful work. That had been clone. Practically the only men out o. work were men who were unemployed through sickness, old age, and infirmities.

The member for Christchurch North (Mr S. G. Holland) had said there were now more unemployed than there were when the Government cam e into office, he continued. Mr Holland knew there was no foundation for that state iment.

Mr Holland quoted the figures

Mr Webb said that there were 6-5,000 unemployed when the Government assumed office. In 1937 the number was 37,316, 20,000 of whom were on sustenance. ' The Government had reduced the unemployed by 17,432. Of the men on sustenance 7-154 had been classed as unfit for any class of work. Many of these men were hospital cases. Under the humanitarian policy that had been adopted, thousands were given sustenance who were entitled to relief under some pension scheme.