MEN, MONEY AND JOBS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 8 December 1930, Page 3

MEN, MONEY AND JOBS

THE REFLECTIONS OF BROWN BOARD AND ITS PROBLEMS A DIP INTO HISTORY "I see," said Brown (in the "New Zealand Herald"), "that the Unemployment Board is going to display a touching faith in human'nature. It is going to subsidise casual jobs. With the aid of local committees, it is going to arrange with householders to find odd jobs, such as gardening, for unemployed men, the wages to be subsidised by the boa'rcli

"Of course, one realises that the board is at present dealing with what it regards as a state of emergency and that" broad questions of policy have not yet had time to hatch. But I fear for the board. In this matter it is really starting behind scratch. It will learn by experience. "Naturally it thinks it can 'devise safeguards to prevent dishonest collaboration for the purpose of obtaining a subsidy and make some form of check upon the work done,' but great is the confidence of youth, even youthful boards.

PAST FRAUDS

"This was exactly the scheme by which the Returned Soldiers' Association used to expend a considerable portion of the Poppy Day Fund. It seemed to act very well for a time. If a man got a day's gardening he was paid by the householder the sum of 14s, for which he gave a receipt. The householder then presented tho receipt and received back from the association _7s. Thus a good deed was done and, incidentally, he got a cheap day's work, provided the man gave value and did not dig up the dahlias by mistake. "But, by and bye, suspicions arose as to the bona fides of certain men producing receipts for wages paid and, to cut a long story short, several men who did not possess homes or gardens, or anything else and had employed no one, appeared before a magistrate on the charge of having endeavoured to obtain money by fraud. "What possible chance will there be of the board avoiding such fraudulent impositions unless it maintains officers to superintend this branch of its activities and inspects the work done. "A doleful outlook for the controllers of the dole, all right," said Brown. "Of course, if they appoint sufficient inspectors they will kill a couple of birds with one stone, because more jobs .will be provided, but I shall be sorry for the inspectors in their task of assessing the value of work done m a garden by the average man. I've had some experience myself.

ANOTHER GRIEVANCE

"Did I tell you of my last man. He certainly did a good job, but in the course of the day he told me that he had not registered under the Unemployment Act. I told him that he would be liable for a fine. He replied that as he had no money to pay a fine all they could do would be to put him in gaol where they would have to feed him. I then said that if the scheme had been in operation I would have been liable for employing him, that it was my duty to be sure he had registered. "And what do you think he said. Just this: If the law gives you the right to inspect my book it ought to give me the right to see that my employer is registered and paying up.' He thought it unfair that' there should be no crosscheck upon an employer. "However," said Brown, "the trouble about the board is that it is rushing into trivial schemes for aiding the unemployed with an amateurish enthusiasm when it ought to be getting down soberly to broad measures and all that sort of thing. It is displaying the mind of a relief body that has about fifty pounds to spend." "Well," said Brown's friend, we may fet rid of the thing after next election." "Never," declared Brown. "You will find that it will mortgage its next year's income just as they have done at Home and that the dole system will become a permanent promoter of pauperism."

CURRENCY OF SORTS

"And what do you think of the currency question," asked Brown's friend. "Inflation and so on." Brown remarked that he was not employed in the place where they print bank notes, nor did he work the guillotine in the place where they destroy them. "I know nothing whatever about it," he said. "That means I know as much as 999 men out of 1000." This being thoroughly understood, he proceeded to deal with the matter. "Inflation means circulating more money tokens, so that one may continue to pay £5 for an article worth £4. Well, there is nothing very novel about the idea at all. There was the classic example when James the Second was off the Throne. It was when he was in Ireland arranging to send back William to Holland with a flea in his lug, while the Irish doubtless were hoping that the upshot would be the throwing-off of the' English yoke. James was poverty-stricken _ and so was Ireland. James imagined that prosperity could be speedily restored by other than the old method of working for it. Holding the monopoly of the right to coin, he coined, but on the principle that a farthing could be made a shilling simply by saying so. He debased the coinage. Pots, pans, dooi knockers and old pieces of ordnance were melted and minted into money. The pieces, worth one-sixtieth of their face value, were declared to be legal tender and many a person paid off a mortgage with the bag of counters made out of old kettles.

THE DIMINISHING NEST-EGG

"Of course, no one would countenance debasing our coinage, but if we abandon the gold standard and print bank notes with cheerful freedom we may get dangerously near the point when a bag of paper, while not purchasing much, will do miracles in paying off a mortgage, or what is more to the point, in discharging an insurance policy. "I have sometimes wondered what have been the feelings of people whose insurance policies fell due during the war time inflation. Many of them doubtless* imagined when as young men they took an endowment policy for £IOOO to draw at the age of 00, that this would be a very comfortable nest-egg for their old age. But the £IOOO of the inflation period and even

now is not. the £IOOO which loomed i" tlie distance when the contract was signed in 1890. "Ask any retired Government oilicial how his superannuation meets his needs compared to the value of the same amount of money when he joined the fund? Same thing. James' brass money was a plague that afflicted Ireland for lnany a year and if any of the now countries go in for inflation—but, as I said, I know nothing whatever about it."