UNEMPLOYMENT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20021, 11 February 1927, Page 10

UNEMPLOYMENT.

SITUATION IN DUNEDIN. REGISTRATIONS INCREASING. There are at pr esent on the unemployment role at the Government Labour bureau the names of 205 applicants, comprising 112 married and 95 single men. There were seven now enrolments yesterday, but no offers of employment were forthcoming. A WARM INTERLUDE. HON. MB STEWART AND LABOUR MEMBER. (Special to Daily Times.) WELLINGTON, February 10. During the proceedings when the deputation waited on the Government to-day regarding the Kaitangata mine the question of general unemployment cropped up and led to a warm interlude between the ActingPrime Minister and Mr P. Fraser, M.P. 'The Minister bad remarked that only on Tuesday last when passing through Ashburton ho had been informed that the farmers were ir. need of hands for harvesting, but could not get them. About the same time there had been an unemployed demonstration in Christchurch. A runholdor had also informed him in Dunedin that he bad paid a man’s faro to his place but the latter asked for money in advance after he arrived and then cleared out to a dance 20 miles away. One night and two days afterwards he had demanded his fare back to Dunedin. Mr Stewart said he was afraid that had been the constant experience of many farmers. Mr Fraser interjected that the incident only proved the litter incompetence of the Government to organise any remedial unemployment measures. If the workers wore offered work in the country and were shown how they could get to it they would go. The Minister’s information was all secondhand. , , The Minister; Oh no. If the men will not make an effort to go into the country I shall not help them. I have a great deal of evidence to prove that men are not only not looking for work but are walking off the jobs they are already in. Mr Fraser: Your remarks are a libel and a slander, and are unworthy of a man who is the Acting Prime Minister of this country. , * , ... The Minister: Perhaps you do not like it, but I say emphatically that as these things are known to me it is my duty to make them known to the public. The incident then closed. AN URGENT PROBLEM. IMMIGRATION POLICY BLAMED. A CHRISTCHURCH DEPUTATION. (Special to Daily Times.) CHRISTCHURCH. February 10. A deputation from the unemployed waited on the Minister of Lands (the Hon. A. D. M'Leod) this evening and asked for a cessation of the Government’s assisted immigration policy and for immediate relief work. Mr D. G. Sullivan, M.P., who introduced the deputation, said that what troubled him was not only the extraordinary position of unemployment at this time of the year, hut also the meetings and conferences which were being hold without seeming to lead anywhere. Mr H. Worrall said that, despite the fact that freezing and harvesting operations were in full swing, and the wool and grain stores employing hundreds of men, many others were compelled to walk the streets. He believed the Government’s immigration policy was responsible for the position. The provisions governing the nomination of migrants were not being carried out. People who were receiving charitable aid were allowed to nominate immigrants. The Christchurch Hospital and Charitable Aid Board should be asked to give more adequate sustennace, and the Government should put in hand at once such work as reading and aftoresta Councillor F. R. Cooke urged the cessation of assisted immigration, and said the Government had not given the assistance in Christchurch that had been granted in other centres. “ The Public Works Department is practising cruelty.” said Mr E. J. Howard, M.P. After 56 men had replied to notices asking for men willing to accept country work, the department repudiated the whole thing, and said that it knew nothing about the matter. In reply to the Minister, Mr Worrall said there was a greater percentage of married men among the unemployed, but the single men were getting desperate. Mr M’Leod said he did not intend to make any pronouncement on the matter, when the Prime Minister would be here in a few days. A pronouncement would be made w r hen he returned. Referring to charitable aid, Mr M'Leod said that the Acting-Prime Minister’s statement to the chairman of the Auckland Hospital Board was to go ahsad and provide a fair thing) and the Government would not see him stuck. The Government was paying 22s to the board’s 20s in hospital relief. Mr H. E. Holland, M.P.: It is 14s 2d hero.

The Minister said that pound for pound was being paid over the whole of New Zealand from the Consolidated Fund, spread over different ratios. Local bodies must do their share. Speaking of afforstation, Mr M’Lcod said the Government could not go in for forest plantations without the trees. They could not go on borrowing public money indiscriminately and get 50 ner cent, or less return for it. Efficient and experienced labour was essential. Every efficient worker in my district is in work, and need not bo oiit for five minutes,” said the Minister.

‘■'The man coming out from the city has difficulty in getting farm work, because he has not the necessary efficiency.” The Minister said ho was making inquiries from the Public Works Department regarding the offer of country work where roads were opening up and Crown lands were required, lie was handing the matter over to that department, so that the work might be done. Every effort should and was being made by the Government to provide work. In thanking (he Minister, Mr Sullivan appealed for full attention to bo given to the immigration question and the granting of immediate relief. “Unless the Government. finds n way’Out there will bo a tremendous demand for the dole, or some such system of relief,” he concluded. THE EATENED DEMON S TEA - Ti.UN, DURING ROYAL VISIT. (Special to Daily Times.) CHRISTCHURCH, February 10. Yesterday a suggestion was put forward by the unemployed that they should make a mass demonstration in Christchurch during (lie visit of the Duke and Duchess of York. At n, meeting held in Victoria square to-day it was definitely decided thatif work is not immediately forthcoming they will fall in at the Christchurch railway station on the arrival of the Royal visitors. “If we cannot wall; in front, we’ll walk behind,” said the proposer of the resolution. It was suggested that a public protest should be made against the contribution of rnopey towards the expenses of tb > Royal visit, while unemployment wa rife. There are 262 unemployed registered at present in fTirishhureh.