CANADA'S UNEMPLOYED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21450, 25 March 1933, Page 13

CANADA'S UNEMPLOYED

RELIEF FOR 1,300,000 HUGE ANNUAL EXPENDITURE [FROM OUR OWN CORRESPOND!. :.T] VANCOUVER. March 2 A total of 1,387,562 persons were receiving unemployment relief in Canada last month, representing 800,000 out of work, according to a statement by the Minister of Labour in the House of Commons at Ottawa. Last year the Dominion Government paid £8,300,000 as its share of the cost of relief, which has averaged slightly over one-third of the total expenditure, the provinces and municipalities paying onethird each. In addition, the Federal Government paid in full for the care of 32,000 homeless men in Western Canada, for whom provincial and local authorities would not accept responsibility, as they came under the category of "transient" workers, who move from place to place, following the harvest or other seasonal work. The Dominion has reduced by 40 per cent its outlay for the present year, which is an indication that unemployment is expected materially to slacken during the coming months. Intensive activity in gold mining, without parallel since the days of the Klondike rush, the "back to,the land" movement and change of former avocation are combining to absorb the more adventurous and self-reliant among the army of unemployed. Dominion and Federal Governments are agreed that the time to embark on public works as a deterrent to unemployment has not yet arrived, and tho present year's relief measures will again centre on the necessities of life—food, shelter, fuel and clothing. Canada hag not followed the practice adopted in the other Dominions, notably Australia and New Zealand, in having unemployment relief administered by a national commission or board. In the main, results have been the same, as immense sums of money have been disbursed by the administration, which has gradually achieved cohesion and eliminated duplication and waste Politics have played no part, although tho Liberal leader, Mr Mackenzie King, believes a national board, modelled on the wartime patriotic commission, should have been set up at the outset. . The Minister, however, deplored tlie attitude of the individual to rely more and more on the State and to let up on his normal employment-seeking activity. In this, the third year of relief expenditure, the Minister notes a return to the self-reliant spirit of better days. Curiously enough, there has not been, in Canada, as in Australia, Isew Zealand and South Africa, a demand fgr a JNationa or Union Government. While the Liberal Party can see no virtue in the Government's policies regarding _ its major problems of unemployment relief and tho huge loss on the Canadian National Railway, the suggestion of merging the two major parties in such critical times has never been seriously considered. Ihe disposition of political forces at Ottawa remains the same, with the Bennett Government firmly in the saddle, enjoying an assured prospect of weathering these lean times without appealing for aid from its political opponents or being unseated by the electorate.