UNEMPLOYMENT TAXES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21133, 16 March 1932, Page 14

UNEMPLOYMENT TAXES.

Sir, —Mr. Frank E. Hunter does not address himself to my arguments, but advances a theory of State safety and applies it only one way. Since the unemployment schemes have been put in force the number of unemployed advanced from under 5000 to about 60,000. Thrifty hardworkers are penalised for their thrift while thriftless jnes are encouraged to continue. The pernicious doctrine that the State must feed the people will ruin numbers of our people. There are large numbers who will. not attempt to seek work but rely-on the State. I have seen men who will not work unless they get an arbitrary scale of wages which are now and have always been impossible on any sound economy basis. Suppose five men are landed on an island: three of tliem set to work to gather some - sustenance from the soil while the other two loaf till hunger pinches them. They then turn round on the industrious ones and use the common unemployed slogan. "We demand wages or maintenance " from the other three. By what possible course of reasoning is ftueh a demand justified : That is the condition of unemployment in New Zealand in very many cases. We have reached a pass where numbers do not want to work and. we are encouraging them by our legislation. Ido not doubt there are many genuine cases of suffering and I would do everything possible to succour such cases. After further mature consideration I consider the unemployment tax unmoral and harmful to the nation as a whole. Citizen.