RELIEF WORKS POLICY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20603, 30 June 1930, Page 8

RELIEF WORKS POLICY.

Credit is claimed by the Government for what it has done in providing employment. The magnitude l of its operations has certainly been astonishing, and if " numbers and cost werp a test, it would have* reason for complaining that its oritics had not done its achievement justice. During 2} years, before the United Party entered office, 15.G23 men were sent to Government relief works, of whom 8266 left of their own accord; in the last IS months 20,346 men have been.sent to Government relief works, of whom 11,287 left voluntarily. The greatest number on relief works in 1928 was 4451 ; there are now 6305, and the number is not necessarily the peak of the present Government's record. In years the Reform Government's expenditure, including subsidies, was £1,040,000; in the last financial year alone, the United Government has - spent £1,415,000. In June, 1928, there were 3317 names on the unemployment registers; in June, 1929, about 3500; this month there are 5263, 4 according 'to the latest published return. Surveying these facts, the Government claims that it has done more, at greater cost, than was accomplished by its predecessors, and yet has to admit that it is further than ever from "the permanent cure" that it promised. The explanation of its failure is apparent in the statement that 31,233 men have been sent to employment in 18 months, and in Mr Hansom's claim that tho contract prices "enable men of fair averago ability working industriously to earn the Government standard daily rate of wages." So long as that condition is maintained on Government relief works and im posed on local authorities receiving

subsidies, the numbers engaged and registered do not represent tho dimensions of unemployment but are a record of the men who prefer Government employment or the chance of getting it. There may be many reasons for their preference; one of them is undoubtedly the knowledge that tho Labour Party will be constantly watchful of j, conditions on relief works and ever zealous to prevent any curtailment of them. Falling, under thiß pressure, into a fundamentally erroneous policy, the Government has hidden the real dimensions of genuine unemployment in the mass of numbers attracted by its standing promise of virtually unlimited opportunities, of employment, and has been driven to undertake a vast programme of works which is not justified by the simple assertion/that they are use ful and necessary and developmental. These are vague terms which neither singly nor in combination imply that the expenditure will be remunerative. Stronger forces than the clamour of the Labour Party will compel the Government to take the only steps that will remedy the position. The first is to make a distinction between relief and standard employment, since identification of the genuinely unemployed appears too difficult, and so reduce the palliative measures. Beyond that, as the Committee on Unemployment advised it, "only some stimulus to economic activity and renewed confidence permeating through commerce and industry can satisfactorily relieve the situation."