THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, JANUARY 11, 1932. THE UNEMPLOYED.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21539, 11 January 1932, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, JANUARY 11, 1932. THE UNEMPLOYED.

It would be unjust to the great majority of the unemployed in our midst to suppose that they sympathise with the action of those of their number who conceived the idea of the regrettable demonstration in one of the main streets of the city on Saturday. The adoption of measures that amounted to an attempt to exercise coercion and to introduce a form of mob rule constituted in reality a disservice to the unemployed. And there is neither rhyme nor reason in the selection of one individual or one firm as the scapegoat upon whom a vicarious retribution should be wreaked for the economic ills from which the community is suffering. There could, indeed, be nothing more monstrously unfair than the singling out of Messrs Warded Bros, and Co. as traders who should be threatened with a raid on their premises. It seems reasonable to believe that this firm’s premises would certainly have been stormed and plundered if it had not been for the fact that adequate police protection was available. It is not by recourse to violence and crime that the claims cf the unemployed to public consideration are to be supported and strengthened. Those who participated in the demonstration on Saturday weakly allowed themselves to be ill advised and badly guided. The natural impulse on the part of a person who is attacked is to offer resistance. Any resumption or continuation of threatening and violent conduct of the kind that was witnessed on Saturday can only have the effect of creating a feeling unfavourable to the unemployed, including, unfortunately, the many hundreds among them who will have been chagrined, if not actually pained, by the exhibition of lawlessness in which a few irresponsible individuals induced the more unthinking and the more reckless to take part. A great deal of tolerance is shown among British communities to misguided agitators, and an example of this was furnished on Saturday in the forbearance displayed by the police. The restraint on the part of the authorities was admirable to a fault. It erred in the respect that the suspension of traffic in George street should not have been permitted. There are various open spaces in Dunedin in which those who are so disposed can demonstrate to their heart’s content without any interruption of the normal traffic. Nothing, however, is to be gained by the unemployed, or by anyone else, by an,effort to establish mob rule. British tradition and British sentiment are strongly opposed to anything of the kind. Machinery has been brought into force in the Dominion under which relief for the unemployed is provided from the proceeds of taxation. If it be complained that the machinery operates ponderously and is less efficient than it might be, we agree. The powers of the local Unemployment Committees are so severely restricted that the entire, control of the machinery may be said to be exercised by the central Unemployment Board. And that is a body which, admittedly handling an exceedingly difficult undertaking, has itself developed a tendency to move slowly. Over twelve weeks have elapsed since the Minister in charge of Unemployment intimated the adoption of a new policy under which the unemployed men were to be put to productive work in the country districts. But there is as yet no public

indication of the Board having taken steps to bring this policy into effect. In the meantime the local committees are being allowed an insufficiency of funds for expenditure upon work that is mostly of an uneconomic character. The position is far from satisfactory, but it will be not in the least improved or in the smallest degree rectified through the recourse by the .unemployed—or by a section of the unemployed—to acts of violence and the practice of intimidation.