UNEMPLOYMENT BOGEY

Northern Advocate, 25 October 1935, Page 6

UNEMPLOYMENT BOGEY

During question-time at a meeting held at Mania by the National Government candidate for the Bay of Islands constituency, a member of the audience declared his belief that the Government did not wish to solve the unemployment' problem. The speaker was cute enough not to give his reasons for sucli a stupid belief. We are afraid some individuals may have welcomed the existence of on the utterly fallacious, assumption that cheap labour would benefit them in their own particular undertakings, but he is indeed narrowminded and short-sighted who believes that any Government would be so foolish as to want unemployment to flaunt its ugly form in the Dominion. The idea is too fantastic for discussion. It is obvious that those who are affected by unemployment, and its influence upon the labour supply generally, form a majority of the electorate, and as universal franchise exists in this country, it must be clear that any Government would wish that there should be as few unemployed as possible on election day. It should be remembered that unemployment in New Zealand, as in every country, is the direct result of an economic blizzard that has ravaged the face of the globe. There may be room for difference of opinion as to how the unemployment problem should be met, but it is absurd to suggest that the Government of the day in this country, or any country, does not wish to find a solution of the pr obi em.