Manawatu Daily Times Unemployment Problems

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6544, 28 February 1928, Page 6

Manawatu Daily Times Unemployment Problems

Although New Zealand has its unemployment problems they are not so acute as those of the Old Country, where the evil appears to have become almost insoluble, at least in certain industries. It has been very clearly demonstrated of late that the existing machinery provided by the unemployment exchanges has broken down, and the Government has now appointed an Industrial Transference Board, the principal aim of which is the transfer of workers and, in particular, of miners, for whom opportunities for employment in their own district or occupation are no longer available. According to official figures, the number of miners either fully or partially unemployed is not far short of a quarter of a million, while at the end of November last there were as many as 130,000 men out of work in the engineering and shipbuilding industries in Great Britain.

It is recognized that altogether too many persons are looking to the mining industry at Home for employment, the redundancy being probably as high as 20 per cent. Therefore, the practical problem is less one of transferring the unemployed minex-s from one coal district to another than one of finding them other work. The difficulty of discovering other suitable avenues of employment is likely to be considerable. It is hoped that the Industrial Transference Board will be able to stimulate the transfer of workmen from distressed areas to other areas and industries both at Home and overseas.

For the British miner, as such, no demand has been discovered in the dominions. He might become an agriculturist at Home or overseas, but in his own country he has apparently no desire to become a farm worker, though it is said that on the edge of mining villages, which arc full of unemployed miners, farmers are often unable to get men to work for them. It seems that the unemployed miners will not leave an insured for an uninsured calling. Their reluctance to quit their hold of the insurance benefit and the certainty of unemployment pay is no doubt understandable enough, but the position only illustrates, it is pointed out, how even the most beneficial legislation can produce unexpected ill-effects most difficult to eradicate.

How the Industrial Transference Board may seek to overcome the difficulty created by the clash of insured and non-insured occupations remains to be seen. The operation of the principle which will govern the Board’s activities will, in any case, be wa,tched with interest, though perhaps the experience gained from the plan of procedure likely to be adopted may not be a very helpful guide to the solution of the unemployment question in a country like New Zealand, where its effect is seen not so much in any particular industry as in industry as a whole, and especially in the field of unskilled labour. It does not appear that transfer in the sense of migration is likely to figure in the calculations of the board that has been appointed, and the present position in New Zealand certainly docs not encourage such a course. The migration of miners either to Australia and New Zealand has already demonstrated that the only result is to swell the ranks of the unskilled workers, for away from his own particular job the miner must be counted as such. Experience in recent years has shown that when such men come to this country they invariably do so to escape the drudgery of the mines. Consequently they come upon the market in most cases as labourers, with the result that in time of stress the unemployment problem becomes more acute.