UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20961, 26 February 1930, Page 8

UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF.

The conclusions .arrived at by the Special Committee which has been engaged for a very considerable time, in conducting an investigation into the problem of unemployment in the Dominion have now been published. In so far as they relate to the caudes of unemployment, they are, for the most part, as sound as they are inevitable, but the remedies that are proposed may not prove acceptable to a large portion of the community. Unemployment, as the . committee states, arises very largely from social conditions and presents, moreover, a continuing problem. As it constitutes a national problem, it is reasonable that the entire community should be called upon to defray the cost of measures designed for its relief. The attempts that have been made in the past to deal with unemployment have, in many instances, been far from satisfactory, a fact which has previously been stressed in these columns and which is supported by the figures supplied in the Special Committee’s report relating to the uneconomic nature of the relief measures that have been adopted of late years. A scheme of unemployment insurance, to which the employers, the employees, and the State would, as in Great Britain, contribute is rejected by the committee as not applicable to the conditions of the Dominion/ The reasons which have forced the committee to this view—namely, that industry is not organised in New Zealand as it is at Home and that a great deal of the employment that is offered in staple industries is seasonal and intermittent —carry a great deal of weight. The committee has devised, therefore, a plan, by which, by means of the imposition of fresh taxation, the funds may be secured for the relief of unemployment. Its suggestion, however, that extra revenue to the extent of over £700,000 should be obtained, mainly ,by a system of flat taxation, will not be generally acceptable both by reason of the fact that this would involve a departure from the principle of graduated taxation which is observed in this Dominion, and might prove inequitable, and also because the burden of taxation is at present weighing very heavily upon all sections of the community. In its proposals for the provision of work for the unemployed when money becomes available the committee is somewhat vague. It is designed, [ however, to set up an Employment j Board to arrange with the Gov- [ eminent and with local bodies schedules of^work-of a developmental character on which the work of the unemployed might be utilised and to administer the relief funds. The committee contemplates further that in the event of useful work not being found for persons registered as unemployed this board should have authority • to make sustenance payments to those for whom employment is not available. This is a proposal that seems to be fraught with the danger of abuses against the occurrence of which stringent safeguards would be necessary. The problems with which a committee is faced that sets about to cure the grave economic malady of unemployment are admittedly manifold, and it is at least apparent from the report that a thoughtful and serious attempt has been made to deal with them.