UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21975, 9 June 1933, Page 8

UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

Concreteness was given on Wednesday night to the Mayor’s proposal that the City Council should undertake a programme of “ constructive and reproductive, works ” upon which unemployed labour should be used at award rates of wages. The proposal was taken out of the realm of the nebulous into that of the definite by the Mayor’s presentation of a minute indicating the class of work to which, in his judgment, his proposal should apply and indicating also a method by which, he suggests, it should be financed. The principle that capital expenditure should be incurred in order to provide work for the unemployed has received support of late in influential quarter's. It may he

accepted as sound within certain limits, always provided that the expenditure is applied to undertakings that can be justly regarded as productive. For this reason the proposal of the City Council to raise a loan for the provision of a fresh source of municipal water supply may be recommended to the support of the electors. And the Mayor’s scheme of raising an additional sum of £70,000 in order to utilise the labour of unemployed is not devoid of merit if a schedule of productive works upon which the funds would be expended is submitted to the satisfaction of the ratepayers. But the Mayor is making certain assumptions for which there does not seem to be any justification. It is not easy, for instance, to follow his argument that, if the City Council spends £70,000 on constructive work, this means that, with the Unemployment Board’s allotment, it would get £200,000 worth of permanent work for the year. The Mayor is, however, proposing that the men to be employed on the works which would be undertaken under the loan scheme should receive award rates of wages. In other words, these men are to be taken out of the orbit of the Unemployment Board’s relief operations. It is impossible to suppose that an “ allotment,” or subsidy,' would be obtainable from the Unemployment Board upon the expenditure thus incurred by the City Council. The probabilities are that there would be no subsidy. It is in respect of the building trade only that the Unemployment Board has offered any subsidy on award rates of wages. The Board regards the building trade as one that is in an exceptional position and it seems highly unlikely that it will extend the subsidy upon payments of award, rates to any other form of industrial activity. Moreover, if a proposal of a loan of £70,000 to provide work for the unemployed is to be submitted to the ratepayers for their approval, it must be accompanied by a schedule in which the works that are to be undertaken out of the proceeds of the loan are clearly specified. The Mayor’s own suggestions concerning the permanent works upon which money might be expended in terms of his proposal do not impress us greatly. One of them, that root crops should be grown on unused lands for export purposes, as well as for local consumption, is simply fantastic. It is probable that the preparation of a schedule of works which would capture the imagination of the ratepayers will tax the ingenuity of the Council if it .adopts the Mayor’s, proposal. But it would be idle to go to a poll with a loan proposal that was not accompanied by a schedule plainly specifying’ the works that were contemplated, and they would have to be works of a really productive description.