A COLLAPSING STRIKE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21649, 20 May 1932, Page 6

A COLLAPSING STRIKE.

In recording their determination against a strike, the workers on unemployment relief schemes throughout the Dominion have shown that, left to make a decision for themselves, they are capable of exercising a robust common sense. Throughout New Zealand the strike is collapsing with a completeness that must be mortifying to the irresponsible leaders who had hoped to bring unemployment relief work to a standstill and to create fresh difficulties for the Government. The work which is being provided under the various relief schemes has one object only, that of furnishing the unemployed and their dependents with the temporary help that is needed by them. Any hardship due to a strike of relief workers would, therefore, fall directly upon the strikers themselves. They are being paid for undertaking labour from which the people receive no considerable benefit, and their refusal to carry on would cause no dislocation of essential services and no embarrassment to any section of the community. The people of the Dominion are most sympathetically disposed towards those among their number who are forced through economic stress -to rely upon them for their support, but if the -unemployed were to choose to reject the assistance that is offered to them they would certainly render themselves a disservice. The reason for the attempt to organise a genera! relief workers’ strike is said to he that the scale of relief granted by the Unemployment Board is inadequate. And with this goes the implication that the Unemployment Board is provided with funds which would enable it, if it

chose, to pay relief wages on a much higher scale. The deputy chairman of the Board has made a statement this week that places the position in a light in .which a number of persons have persistently refused to regard it. It is a greatly mistaken impression, if it be conceivable that it exists, that the increase in the unemployment taxation has quadrupled the income of the Unemployment Board. The depression has caused a general reduction in the wages and other sources of income upon which the taxation is imposed, and the Consolidated Fund subsidy on unemployment relief funds has been withdrawn. It is exceedingly doubtful whether the board will, in the full year, receive a sum that will be very materially greater than it did from the proceeds of the previous taxation schedule, supplemented as they were by a subsidy, while, on the other hand, its commitments have been considerably increased. The claim that the payments should be increased can only be fully satisfied, in present circumstances, if the Board is provided with increased funds. The main question today, as Mr Jessep has said, is “ How much more in the way of taxation could the .public stand without precipitating absolute ruin?” Most sons and firms have reached a condition where every additional demand that is made upon them by the Government must increase unemployment by necessitating a curtailment of their expenditure on labour costs. An increase in unemployment taxation would be of doubtful benefit.