NEW ZEALAND'S OUTLOOK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20656, 30 August 1930, Page 14

NEW ZEALAND'S OUTLOOK.

Sir,-—The outlook in New Zealand will be serious unless the people wake up and realise the grave resilts which must arise from the faulty mai tier in which we are dealing with the unemployment problem, (hie of the first results of our policy of paying full wages tD the unemployed on relief works was a considerable increase in the number of people who alleged that they wero in need of relief. There is abundant evidence that hundreds of men left jobs on farms to take advantage of die easier and better-paid relief work. 1 litis wo see the t! lbertian position of a growing number of unemployed on the one hand and an outcry for labour on farms on the other. Even assuming that the problem is a permanent one, which we. do not admit, it is obvious that a vast public expenditure is no remedy, for the simple reason that i: cannot bo indefinitely continued. It is axiomatic that spending public funds raised by increased taxation will necessarily reduce the amount available for private industry, leaving no escape from the dilemma that such expenditure must reduce the employment which private enterprise eaii provide and throw more men on to the public funds. "It is as futile." as ono authority has pointed out, "to divert tho nation's capital from its proper functioi as to attempt to increase tho length of a stick by cutting pieces off one end and fastening them on the other"; the. let result, is to weaken the stick and diminish it by the wastage in cutting and piecing. If tho present policy of huge public expenditure is continued the burdens will be carried beyond the breaking point, and increased unemployment must result. The great delusion seems to be that the national purse is inexhaustible, like the widow's cruse. To find employment (or all workers through iudustiy means an increase in production, but the dillictilty the Government has to face is that production cannot be increased while its proceeds arc unsaleable, because costs are too gre;;t to enable it to meet tho world's marl.et. The way to recovery is through lower costs, but the present huge Government expenditure and the payment of ai: uneconomic relief wage serves to maintain the high costs, and will even tend to raise them. The writing is on tho wall if only the people would read it ; high machine-made wages regardless of production, whether in private industry or public relief works, only intensify the trouble and. as the Federation of Trades Unions report, (in England) states, tliu w.ige-earners are. and will lie, the greatest sufferers. Relief work should receive only reasonable sustenance wages so as to make it less attractive; this would encourage men to take up more productive and fully-paid workwhen available. N.Z. .Welfare League.