The Manawatu Daily Times Public Works For Unemployment

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 55, 7 March 1935, Page 6

The Manawatu Daily Times Public Works For Unemployment

The experiment of large-scale public works as a method of dealing with unemployment has been tried and has failed, and it is not intended to repeat it." Such is the considered view of the British Government as officially set forth in a memorandum sent to the League of Nations in reply to the latter s request for information on national public works.

The League believes that a continuous international study of the public works of the world —particularly those big programmes of work financed from national resources —would be of considerable value to all governments. It would enable them to compare experience and results, and especially the effect of such works on the resumption of economic activity and unemployment.

In its reply to the League’s inquiries, the British Government declares that the test of any public works is “their social or economic value," and, therefore, “the amount of employment provided cannot be the paramount consideration."

British experience over some years, the memorandum continues, is that “the stimulation of special works selected primarily in respect of their employment-providing capacity has an effect on the unemployment position which is small relative to the heavy expenditure incurred, and the works, when completed, leave heavy burdens on national and local finances which impede the recovery of normal activity'.”

A recent study of several schemes showed that an expenditure of £1,000,000 in Great Britain provided employment for about one year for 4000 men. This figure includes not only the men actually engaged on the undertaking, but also all those concerned with the provision of materials, transport and subsidiary industries.

Since 1919, the Government points out, the total capital expenditure on subsidised housing in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland is well over £700,000,000. During these 16 years about £113,000,000 has been spent on road schemes, and £120,000,000 on telephone development. Substantial sums on these services are still being spent and a national effort at considerable expense is now being made to make a quick finish of slums. These outlays total well in excess of £1,000,000,000.

Since 1919, some 17,640 schemes, costing £190,000,000, were assisted by grants from the Unemployment Grants Committee.

• These items, the Government points out, are merely the major ones. Smaller sums have been spent by statutory companies with State aid and by public authorities on land settlement, land drainage, colonial development, fishery, harbours and rural water supply. Large sums have also been spent by local authorities and other bodies with or without State assistance. Public works, the Government declares, are part of the normal activities of the State. They will therefore continue in Great Britain, “subject to the test of their value to the community.’ ’

The British memorandum to the LeaguO concludes with the reiteration of'Whitehall’s well-known view that “the expansion of normal activity will most surely and rapidly be brought about by the creation of confidence by steady policy—in particular, financial confidence, the lowering of rates of interest with

resultant cheap and plentiful capital, and, in so far as Government action is possible, by the creation of facilities for and the removal of hindrances of trade. v

At a mooting of the Taranaki Acclimatisation Society this week it was reported that 10,000 fish had been lost as a result of the recent extensive flood. Thanks to the sporting spirit of the farmers, it was stated, a large number of flsh had been caught and put back into adjacent streams. On the other hand, some people had been seen out with pitchforks spearing fish and returning homo with largo catches. At Wellington yesterday Murray Hurdle was fined £1 and costs £1 7s 6d on the cliargo of being the owner of an Alsatian dog which attacked a little boy in tho Ivhandallah Eeserve. The Magistrate (Mr. E. Stillwell) remarked that there did not seem to havo been tho viciousness sometimes associated with dogs of this size and breed, and it might be .that tho dog had acted through fear, though there was no evidence of this. An order was made fop the destruction-of the dog.

Details of an arrangement between the Auckland Master Bakers’ Association and the Alliance of Labour, by which a concession in the market price of bread will bo mado to relief workers, were reported to the Auckland Metropolitan Unemployment Belief Committee yesterday. Under this scheme bona fulo relief workers will bo able to obtain a standard 21b. loaf through any baker in Auckland at 4id, delivered. The sum of £3O was required to finance the scheme for the first week, and the committee decided to make an advance of this amount.

In New Zealand testimonials are usually considered to bo indispensable to an applicant for a position, but this is not so in the United States, accoi fling to Mr G. M. Keys, secretary to the Christchurch Boys’ Employment Committee. Addressing a rally of employed and unemployed boys at the Y.M.C.A.’s building, Mr Keys said that it had been his experience in America that testimonials were never asked for, and ho had learnt to put them in his bag and keep them there. ‘‘You simply appear before the employer, and he asks you a few questions and sizes jou up; that is all,” said Mr Iveys. “U you are engaged and can handle the job, you stay.”

“I regret to say that at one of 'the schools visited wo found that there was a case of two children in one family being compelled to rise at 3.00 each day and assist in the milking, and afterwards walk three miles to school', ” stated Mr E. F. l-Icmingway, chairman of tho Wanganui Education Board, in his report tabled at the board’s monthly meeting. He added: “Needless to say, tho attendance of these children is not good, and when they do arrive at school they are too tired to do their lessons.” Mr Hemingway said it was shocking, and remarked "that the board had taken immediate steps to have tho matter invest.gated.

There has been considerable speculation among listeners concerning the future of broadcasting stations when under the control of tho Broadcasting Board. In an interview at Christchurch on Tuesday night Itt. Hon. G. W,. Forbes stated that tho value of the B stations was recognised by tho Government and there would be no detrimental interference with them. There would bo no ousting of the present officials and ho considered that the stations would bo much better under the now arrangement than they had been in the past. Mr. Forbes emphasised tho fact that there would be no attempt to do away with tho stations and suggested that they would be fostered.

After motoring -1000 miles through New Zealand, an Australian business man, Mr. E. 0. Erickson, said at Auckland yesterday that the Dominion was a little paradise for tourists, and only inadequate publicity, high fares and poor service on ships prevented it from becoming the playground of Australian holiday-makers. He said that when Australians learned that they would be charged upwards of £4 per . day on steamers and that if they missed one they might have to wait eight days for another they went to the Blue Mountains' instead, though they still wished they could come to New Zealand, 'the potato embargo was a trifling matter compared with the practical embargo on tourist traffic, he added. No further information has been received in Auckland by the relatives of Mr. A. Hayman, the Auckland missionary, who is reported to have been killed by bandits in China on Christmas Day. Mr. Hay man's mother, Mrs. J. E. Hayman, of Mount Eden, received a letter a few days ago from Mr. Hayman's wife, who has been staying in Shanghai, stating she had received a letter from her husband dated December. 7. He said the bandits had made him write a further letter to the British authorities in Nanking demanding ransom. The bandits threatened to murder him if the money was not quickly forthcoming. The letter from Mr. Hayman's wife was dated .January 20, and in it she stated that sho had heard nothing further up to that date. Teaching at any time requires more thau the average degree of patience, but teaching in a retardate school is apparently an occupation which .Jehovah forgot to invent for Job (states an exchange). The story is curront of an earnest young teacher at one such institution who had spent three exhausting weeks coaxing the letters of the alphabot into one child’s head—at the rate of about three a week. At the end of that time the small girl registered signs of mental exhaustion and the teacher was about ready for a rest cure. The lessons were interrupted and on resumption the child startled the teacher by repeating the alphabet from A to Z faultlessly. When an explanation was asked the small’ retardate. replied slyly “Oh, that’s all right, teacher. I knew my ABC before I came to school.”