UNEMPLOYMENT SCHEME 4A

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21295, 23 September 1932, Page 13

UNEMPLOYMENT SCHEME 4A

Sir, —As usual the farmer is the last to get Government assistance, and the first to have it withdrawn, for the simple reason that he takes it as a matter of course, and while others raise cain, he plods along and works another hour per day or part of the night to make ends meet. Look at the noise that is being made about the reductions in the sustenance dole, and who has to find the needful for this ? Why the poor old cocky with other taxpayers. There is no question that the 4A Scheme is the best from every point of view that has been' brought out. Compare it with the single men's camps, which costs the taxpayers over £1 per week per man employed, while the work done is not reproductive, and in many cases useless, and the njen employed are learning nothing and getting nowhere. With the 4A Scheme, first take the cost. In most cases the farmer pays 10s, together with the Government 10s, making £1 per week and as the man's keep, which the farmer provides, is estimated at 15s, the Government takes Is 9d unemployment tax/ leaving only 8s 3d to be met out of taxes and the men are learning something and are away from hotels and undesirable company. With more men on the land, production is going ahead in leaps and bounds. One has only to look at the butter factory returns to see this. During the past 30 years I have always kept a man or boy, and looking back over their careers I find that over 50 per cent of them are now farmers. Are the Farmers' Union and our country M.P.'s asleep, that they have nothing to say about the above ? H. "A- Hawke, Pukekawa.