UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20521, 24 March 1930, Page 12

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE.

Sir,—-Mr. 0. Mcßrine cannot see that reparations have anything to do with unemployment because millions of Germans are idle and only thousands of Frenchmen. Never iiaving been in Germany I cannot claim to know much about the country, but one thing I do know is that German workers are working double-time at half-pay to pay reparations. "When Mr. 0. Mcßrine denies this he shows his ignorance of a very important fact. Proof can be found here in Auckland, where cut-rate stores are selling goods retail at prices lower than the English manufacturer can make them. Another fact Mr. 0. Mcßrine could notconvince a reader is untrue is reparations are work done, and the higher the reparations the more work the Allies get done for them, and the less work there is for their own workers to do. The evil hits both the vanquished and conqueror, but the sequel is the one that has to do the work must eventually become the master, and the idle workers of the conquering nation become every day less competent. I refer readers to my first letter for proof. Harold Schmidt.

Sir, —Mr. 0. Mcßrine objects to my calling the unemployment relief "charity" or "dole." A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. My opponent is at liberty to call this payment by the most mellifluous, fanciful and deceptive name he can devise; but the bald fact will remain that the payment is eleemosynary, something for nothing, alms. If he considers that he can hide the essential fact by verbal legerdemain, let him try it on the groundlings. The essential fact is that the worker is to get a lot more than he ever paid for; and fire and life insurance are only red herrings which will not draw me from the trail. The amount given to the fund by the employers and the State will be a forced contribution. If Mr. Mcßrine denies that, will he guarantee that the Labour Party will undertake to raise the money by voluntary contributions, thu3 showing they are not forced ? Again, will he guarantee that, assuming the proposed scheme is adopted,. Labour unions will not try to get an increase in wages to cover the workers' contribution ? I have followed political and public affairs in New Zealand for nearly half a century, and have come to the conclusion that the greatest handicap upon the Labour Party is the habit of its leaders of adopting gross and palpable fallacies, and trying to ram them down the public throat as irrefutable logic. Logicus. March 19, 1930.

Sir, —Your correspondent X says 1 am "quite wrong," but when he proceeds to lay bare "the fallacy of my argument," I agree that his pen-name is right. Had it been XXXX I would have challenged it. His product is decidedly thin. Metaphysics and mixed metaphors will not help us to understand, let alone solve, this social problem. If X, when nest he is hungry, will "make a right-about-face turn" away from the pantry and "search earnestly to uncover those hidden powers," etc., he will probably discover that introspection -is not very filling. The production of material wealth by which alone our bodies can be maintained is to-day a highly complicated social operation, and it is almost entirely due to changes in that social operation that we . have large numbers of indivdually estimable people unemployed from time to time. It is adding an -unintended but very real insult to the material and mental sufferings of the unemploved to charge them with individual responsibility for their plight. It is not true. Mr. N. G. Gribble does not seem to be quit® fair. 'Surely he must see that it would be somewhat presumptuous on the part of the committee to lay down , the lines on which land settlement should proceed at a time when a new Government with an apparent mandate from the countrv had stated that it was making that matter its principal business. If the committee's proposals differed from those of the," Government they might have been used politically to embarrass its actions and then, if those actions proved futile, both Government and Opposition would have turned and rent the committee. Has Mr. Gribble given sufficient thought to thefigures he himself quotes? "He states truly that in' four or fivp. years, recently 100,000 acres of land in New Zealand went out of cultivation, but that- agricultural <and pastoral production during the same period increased. To complete the picture he should have stated further that the persons engaged on the land also decreased by many thousands; IL- the trained farmer population - during this period abandoned this large area and left or were driven out of their calling, is it certain that the bringing in of further areas of land would relieve the position ? The fanner may be, as Mr. Gribble' says, "the true individualist." His great 'increase in production per head is, however, not by any means due to individual policy. I think the New Zealand farmers are an outstanding example of co-opera-tive action. Nor has his increased production been independent of social changes beyond his immediate sphere. The discoverer of phosphate deposits in the Pacific, the transport workers, chemists and fertiliser operatives, those who produced and brought to his farm the petrol engine and hydro-electric power, - and many others in the social economic orbit have taken a hand in it. The farmer does not individually produce his valuable contribution to the well-being of the community. Neither does he sell it individually. There is a Dairy Board and a Meat Board. Has Mr. Gribble read the committee's report on "Afforestation," etc., and on "The Possibilities for Increased Farm Production V Does he think them worth while ? Oscar Mcßrine.