LACK OF CONFIDENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20235, 20 April 1929, Page 12

LACK OF CONFIDENCE.

The anomaly of unemployment persisting in New Zealand when all the major factors in its economic affairs are tending toward the creation of a high degree of prosperity has impelled the Prime Minister to suggest that business people arc not taking full advantage of the opportunities of increasing trade. His remarks should set people thinking whether the "spectre of unemployment" is really symptomatic of the actual state of affairs, and whether the general assumption that confidence is at a low ebb and enterprise arrested is not due to failure to observe and appreciate more significant evidence of the actual condition of ihe country. Even if there are, as Sir Joseph Ward says, many men unable to find regular or permanent work, and therefore entitled to claim means of avoiding distress, that condition alone is not so grave or so extensive that it counterbalances all other evidence of industrial and commercial animation. Twenty years ago, owing to the reactions of the American financial panic, thei) 0 was acute depression accompanied by much unemployment in New Zealand, but it was not long before there were complaints of shortage of labour. As on that occasion, a heavy fall in prices for staple commodities has caused severe disturbance, but the fact of recovery is surely demonstrated by such evidence as the establishment of new records in export trade and the great accumulation of private wealth. In three years, over £8,000,000 have been added to the private deposits in the trading banks alone, until the amount stands at the highest figure in thn Dominion's history. It is difficult to discover the real state of trade within the country, but the business people fo whom Sir Joseph Ward appealed should look at their own positions and decido whether turnover and profits arc a better guide than the number of men registered as unemployed. The Prime Minister's remarks are valuable also aa a reminder that Ihe Government's promise of unlimited employment on public works is not a panacea for disturbed economic conditions. It is naturally finding that its railway works cannot bo immediately started, and is being forced to resort to such other forms of relief works as roadmaking. Having said so much, would it not be advisable for the Prime Minister to inquire how many of tho nominally unemployed are actually unable to find work, how many of them have, in fact, been induced to register as unemployed by the prospect of three or four years' steady work on new railways ? Sir Joseph Ward says unemployment is a "spectre." Is he quite certain that it does not owe much of both its form and its substance to the Government's own utterances and proceedings and that, even if it has a basis of reality, its influence has been unduly magnified ? That consideration might also be studied by business people in association with the Prime Minister's appeal to them for greater confidence and more active enterprise.