WORK FOR ALL

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 246, 14 September 1935, Page 8

WORK FOR ALL

HIGHLY IMPORTANT SCHEME. PUBLIC WORKS DEVELOPMENT. (By Telegraph.—Special to Standard.) WELLINGTON, Sept. 14. A highly important development is taking place which is likely to achieve prompt results in relieving unemployment by providing work for as many of the unemployed as possible at standard rates of pay on public works of permanent value. A report is being prepared by an inter-departmental committe, working in collaboration with the Unemployment Board and the Treasury for the information of the Minister of Finance (Mr Coates), involving a comprehensive plan which has two distinctive phases. Mr Coates stated to-day that the committee is engaged in making a careful review of major works ahead, and that the convener is Professor H. Beishaw, who is attached to the Minister’s staff. One of the functions of the committee is to suggest an immediate or shortrange policy which can be brought into effect at tiie earliest moment. There are ample financial resources at the Government's disposal to enable this to be done. The more important task of the committee, however, has been to advise regarding a long-range policy of national works financed jointly from loan moneys and the Unemployment Fund. This is substantially in line with the proposal of the National Expenditure Commission which recommended in its report that before any public works are undertaken in future, or before any assistance is given by the State to public works which are to be carried out by local authorities, the proposal should first of all be subject to the expert examination of an independent board of works. This suggestion was endorsed by the Monetary Committee of 1934, which visualised that, such a body would do valuable work in the direction of planning works for which there was no immediate necessity but which could be undertaken with advantage in "times of depression, when working costs wore cheaper and the expansion of public works would ease economic conditions by promoting employment and diffusing spending power. It is understood that the committee, working under the Finance Minister’s direction, is proceeding substantially along these lines and that the result will be the adoption by the Government of an immediate or short-range public works policy as well as a more comprehensive one involving a plan for several years ahead to usefully absorb every, fit man on the unemployment register.