Notes of the Week

Northland Age, Volume 1, Issue 3, 23 October 1931, Page 10

Notes of the Week

LAST week Mr. Coates, as Minister in Charge of Unem-

ployment, broadcast over the air his views on the problem. It was characteristically frank and direct, comprehensive and radical. Mr. Coates has never been hampered by political theories, he sees a job to be done and his nature is to make a frontal attack on it, using what tools are at hand without troubling to ascertain how they are labelled. He made no attempt to minimise the gravity of the position. There has been a small drop in the number of registered unemployed, but there are still nearly 51,000 workless to be provided for, apart from the large number of unemployed youths and women. So far the two Unemployment Boards have only managed to provide sufficient work to minimise the worst phases of suffering, by a large expenditure of money for which no one claims the State has had am equivalent return. Mr. Coates congratulated us in tna*!' we had not yet descended to Britain’s “dole,” or relief without work. But this is only true in a technical sense. A large sum has had to be spent by the Hospital Boards in giving relief “doles” to the families of the unemployed, with the results that the Boards in the larger cities have depleted their funds and Parliament has to make them heavy grants in aid.

''JT'HE whole system of relief work, said Mr. Coates, must be changed, the stream of unemployed labour must be diverted to productive work. We had reached the stage when we cannot afford to borrow and spend money in developmental work on the plea that we are investing capital that will more than pay the interest on the loans. Ws must, says Mr. Coates, “depend more and more on the fruits of industry, and less on development work, national and local, out of loan money.” Which is sound wisdom. Labour must be organised for direct production, on the land and in industries. We will have to revise our whole farming and industrial system to enable this to be done. After nearly a century of development and the building up of a relatively huge export trade, we have only as yet found employment for 80,000 farmers on the land. (Actually the figures are less). It is hopeless therefore to expect farming to permanently absorb the 50,000 unemployed, or even a large proportion of them. But a good deal can be done now.

r pHE first object of the Unemployment Board will be to see that the farms already occupied that can absorb additional labour to increase production will be utilised. The old 4a scheme will have its scope widened. The subsidy of 10/ per week to single men and 20/ to married men will still only be granted for work of a developmental character, “but provided the labour is additional to that which would otherwise be employed and does not displace men already in employment, it may be used for productive work not entirely developmental.” The 4b scheme, subsidised contract labour for development, will be supplied on the same liberal basis. Labour will also be applied directly to the bringing in of Crown lands, and an immediate start is to be made with a block of 48,000 acres and the reclamation of an area of 20,000 acres of rich land now subject to flooding at high tides. Camps will be established for the single men employed, and “no effort will be spared to ensure that living conditions will be comfortable. The men drafted out for developing these lands will be given an opportunity, if they desire, to acquire sections when the land is partially or wholly developed. This is but a beginning ; more will follow.”

pART of Mr. Coates’ programme for the last general

election was a scheme for small farm settlements and he revives the project. “We have the land, we have the cottages or hutments of the type used in Public Works camps, and we have the men anxious to get on the land. Can we net bring these together?” He is planning to “put a definite number of families in cottages in country villages and districts!.” An adaption of the old Village Settlement idea, one hopes on better planned lines. Mr. Coates visualises “families grouped together around a centre might develop into a prospering self-reliant community with a social life and amenities of their own.” We all cherish our little Utopias, but that of Mr. Coates seems a perfectly realisable one. The idea certainly ought to be tried out.