EMPLOYMENT POLICY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 29 May 1944, Page 3

EMPLOYMENT POLICY

PROPOSED DRASTIC CHANGE MAIN FEATURES EXPLAINED London. May 26. The Minister of Labour, Mr Ernest Bovin, speaking on the Government White Paper on employment policy today, saicl that for a hundred years the economic policy had been guided by the Bank Charter Act of 1844. Now, in 1944, the Government proposed to change the policy drastically. The old policy had tried to adapt humanity to fit in with the system of exchange. The new policy adapted the system of exchange to the needs of humanity. An important provision of the Government’s plan was an annual manpower survey and a census of production which would influence the Chancellor of the Exchequer in drawing up the nation’s Budget. Capital expenditure would also be planned a year ahead. The Government could organise the internal economy on a comprehensive basis in the full knowledge of industrial and human facts, and in the light of the world situation. The Government aimed at abolishing “special areas” and controlling the mobility of labour and industry throughout the whole, country, to ensure the maximum employment and stimulation of industrial development where it was most required. Mr Bevin said that the White Paper recognised that unemployment was a disease of the body politic, and that it was the Government’s duty to cure it by recruiting the full resources of the scientists, sociologists, and industrialists, and also to devote all their energy to its elimination. The White Paper was part of a wide, co-ordinated scheme for promoting social security throughout the country of which the Education. Social Insurance, and Health Bills were other examples and of which the object was to ensure at least a framework on which future Governments could build a society capable of absorbing and utilising the ability and classifying the requirements of the, men and women returning from the war. MAIN POLICY FEATURES The White Paper says that the principal features of Government policy will be as follows: 1. A system of varying contributions will eventually be introduced within the new social insurance scheme to influence the volume of the purchasing power of the community. When unemployment rises the contribution will be reduced, giving the public more money to spend. 2. Planned spending on public works to check the onset of depression. A co-ordinated body under the Ministers will be set up to control expenditure by public authorities five years ahead. 3. Concerted action between the Treasury and the banks is planned to influence the volume of capital expenditure by variation in the rate of interest. As part of the measures, it is suggested that the taxes in good times should be higher than are necessary and that the surplus should be carried over as credits repayable in bad times. The White Paper anticipates that rationing and a measure of price control will go on for some time after the war, and that increases in the rations of such things as clothes will be regulated by increases in production. The level of prices and wages must be kept reasonably stable.