REPRODUCTIVE WORKS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20961, 26 August 1931, Page 11

REPRODUCTIVE WORKS.

AIM OF NEW BOARD.

AVOIDING HIGHER LEVY.

RETURN FROM LABOUR NEEDED

[BY TELEGRAPH. —PRESS ASSOCIATION.] WELLINGTON, Tuesday.

The opinion that the new Unemployment Board would have to devote its attention to the promotion of reproductive works if an increased levy were to be avoided was expressed by one of its members, Mr. J. S Jessep, this evening, when the retiring representatives presented an enlarged photograph of the old board to the Minister of Labour, the Hon. S. G. Smith. Speaking on behalf of the new board at the conclusion of the function, Mr. Jessep said it was fully recognised that those who had done preliminary work had blazed the trail along which others would have to follow. It was also recognised that if the new board was able to put its ideas into effect, it would be made possible by the ground work of the old board.

New Zealand was coming to realise that it would be impossible for the present unemployment expenditure to be continued unless some return was secured for the State or unless there was a return sufficient to provide something for the carrying on of the work. Mr. H. B. Burdekin, deputy-chairman of the old board, said members desired the Minister to accept the presentation as a sign of their esteem for him and of the way he had conducted the business of the board for eight months.

The Minister said every member of the board ,had displayed ability worthy of his appointment- and they had tackled in a commendable manner a problem that had defied solution by economists and others throughout the world. Sir. Smith said he could say with safety that no previous occupant of his office had had to spend such long hours at his desk as he had.

It, had been said that he was not entirely satisfied with the old board and that if he had been satisfied, there would have been no need to reconstitute the board. However, there had been an insistent demand for a smaller board and great pressure was brought to bear upon the Government to reconstitute it and to appoint men who were not drawn from any particular source. No possible reflection could be cast on the old board.

To-day the demand was that men should be taken out of the cities. The old board realised this, but with lack of funds saw that it was not right to take a married man out of a (own and expect him to keep two homes going while ho was on rationed work. The newboard came into operation with a deficit of £250.000 left to it by its predecessors, but this legacy would not have been handed on had the old board not been faced with the problem of doing great work with a paucity of funds.