THE MATAMATA RECORD (Published Monday and Thursday) MONDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1936. ON THE DOLE

Matamata Record, Volume XIX, Issue 1789, 7 December 1936, Page 4

THE MATAMATA RECORD (Published Monday and Thursday) MONDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1936. ON THE DOLE

WHEN in Morrinsville on ! Thursday both the Minister for Labour, the Hon. H. T. Armstrong, and his coopted member, Mr. R. 'Coulter (Waikato) spoke in no uncertain terms on the Government’s intended attitude with regard to sustenance men who will not accept work. Mr. Coulter informed a Morrinsville Star representative quite definitely that if men did not accept work when it was offered they would be put off sustenance. The Minister said the time was coming when there will be a shortage of labour all round. Mr. Armstrong also stated that there are 24,000 men in New Zealand drawing sustenance pay. Of these 8000 are unfit, 8000 are unfit excepting for light labour; leaving 8000 who should go off sustenance ii_ the Minister’s prognostication turns out right. Time will tell. At Christchurch on Thursday the Hon. R. Semple is reported to have stated: “ The mem would either have to go to farm work when they were advised to go, or their sustenance allowances would be definitely cut out. We propose to help the willing man, he said, and not to let the unwilling fellow scrounge on the nation.” Mr. Semple made it clear that the Morrinsville camp was not a slave camp,” but “ imposters would get no quarter from the Government.” These are very definite statements. ‘ v

On the sustenance problem generally, the Evening Post comments: “ Sustenance, which is nothing more than a euphemism for the ‘ dole,’ is admittedly an unsatisfactory way of coping with the problem of unemployment. In New Zealand it has not even the virtue of the British unemployment insurance system, which does derive a large part of its revenue for the administration of relief, from industry . itself, directly from the contributions of employers and employees. Thus, in theory at least, a person in employment makes provision for the time of possible unemployment. Both in Britain and in New Zealand, as elsewhere also in the world, unemployment of a part of the population, larger than in the past, seems to have become a permanent * phenomenon and to have created a class of people who are able, on the bounty of the State, to maintain existence without working. The evils of the system have been most marked in Britain, where never since the war has industry been able to furnish full employment for the population. New Zealand has had a brief experience, but with similar results. The effect of prolonged unemployment is to make the victim usually less employable as time goes on and thus the sustenance problem becomes chronic. Raising the sustenance ra.es is obviously no remedy, for the Jjh it may alleviate a little the hardships of existence on sustenance, it tends to perpetuate the system. The only real remedy is employment, and this the Government. sees even in its latest announcement of a rise in sustenance' rates. .The Minister of Labour (Mr. Armstrong) giving- an account of what the Government is doing to find work, adds a warning to such able-bodied men' as may prefer to be * voluntarily unemployed.’ • This warning is timely and valuable.” The promised attitude of the Government on this question at least will meet with the approval of nearly 100 per cent, of the people of the country.