PROVISION OF WORK

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 28 May 1930, Page 7

PROVISION OF WORK

JOBS IN WINTER

SUGGESTIONS,BY MR W. D. HUNT

The proposals for the Unemployment Committee for the development of industries in New Zealand in order to cope with the unemployment problem were dealt .with by Mr W. D. Hunt at the annual meeting of the Economic Society in Wellington. These included the provision of additional winter work, thus helping to balance the great preponderance of summer and autumn work required by the farming industry, schemes that would enable workers to do some work on their own account Which would enable them to tide over , tho periods of unemployment, and tho introduction of new lines of industry.

It was proposed that an unemployment board should arrange that as many of the "public works as possible be undertaken during the winter months. Two industries which might he profitably undertaken during the winter months were forestry and the trapping of fur-bearing animals, chiefly opossums. Last year the total value of the opossum skins trapped in New Zealand was .£157,000, and almost all this money went ns' a reward to the labour in connection with it. Not one-fifth of the areas that would carry opossums were yet stocked. It would take a good many years to have all the forests in the mountain areas stocked, hut' 7 it would not take much expense to catch the opossums and remove them to the different forests, and Jet the natural increase commence. When once the forests were stocked the industry would profitably employ four or Jive thousand men. It is estimated that over 1000 men found employment last year for about two months of the year. ,The opossum industry would also help to cope with the deer problem. Deor occupied the same forests that would he stocked with opossums, and deer skins were worth at present probably. ss. to (is. each. As a side line in connection with opossum trapping they would be profitable.

The committee had also recommended that workers should he enabled by the State advances scheme to acquire suitable areas in closely settled districts and build homes on them. It was proposed that each man should have enough ground for a vegetable garden, pigs and poultry. Its owner in a settled district was almost sure to find employment for probably eight months in the year, and if during the winter months he was short of work he could live more cheaply than in the town and also do Svork on his own place that would add to its productiveness. The committee, in also recommending workers’ settlements .oil the outskirts 3 of the cities or towns, with half an acre or so attached to each house, had the idea that the intensive cultivation of a small area .would bring a number of products for consumption in the workers’ own borne, and'thus reduce his cost of living; and, further, there was no reason why. a surplus should not he grown for sale. Adequate: instruction to these people could be made available by the Department of Agriculture. The children brought up on these garden settlements would also have something of a definite nature to occupy their spare time in a profitable way, and would acquire a knowledge fitting them to take up land in larger areas.