UNEMPLOYMENT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21325, 28 October 1932, Page 15

UNEMPLOYMENT

Sir, —The main point of my previous letter was that we seemed to be jogging along too complacently under a system of subsidies and benefits for unemployment. In reality the Unemployment Act only represents a codification of otir popular cry "no work, then no pay." A large number of people are realising now that the satisfied feeling we get when we say "no work, then no pay," does not mean that we have correctly thought out the problem. Most relief schemes are worked on the principle of men's muscles rather than horses or horse-power. We are all being taxed for work (supposing it all tu be necessary work) being done by manhandling rather than by the cheaper mechanical methods. We are making registration a qualification. We are penalising thrift. We arc putting men on the land and building tliern houses because they have no work and a family and no money. There may be married men giving up jobs to obtain ihcir registration and the accruing benefits under the 10-acre scheme. Subsidising labour has been tried in the past and reported on by Royal Commissions. Surely the above facts should force us to give the matter further consideration. In the meantime surely we should never penalise thrift; we should cut down taxation as much as possible, thus helping industry. No scheme of work should be put in hand for the sake of making work. We should do any necessary work by a fairly rigid compromise between the cheapest available -method and, say, slightly, and onlv slightly, less economical means that will give rather more employment. We should cut out the subsidising of labour absolutely, and labour itself should be most insistent on this point, as subsidising labour when carried to its logical conclusion would mean nothing less than complete enslavement of labour or complete Socialism; perhaps they are synonymous terms. Q uo •