THE BOTTLE NECK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22052, 7 September 1933, Page 15

THE BOTTLE NECK

TO the editor. Sir, —In all matters of unemployment relief, small farm settlement, and also in an increasing number of matters that affect our lives as citizens, the final decision as to whether anything shall be done or as to the method of doing it, rests with some Government department in Wellington. More and more Wellington is becoming a bottle-neck, preventing the carrying out of necessary work and making impossible business-like methods and decisions. It would appear as if some form of provincial government should be again revived, and in nothing could this have better results than in the administration and use of unemployed labour. A small board composed of an able business man, a farmer of wide experience, the local government engineer, and a member of the unemployed, with headquarters in the capital of the province, would be an fait with local conditions, and able to make those prompt decisions, according to local needs ; without which no business or organisation can run efficiently. All unemployment money collected in a province should be used in that province, and it would be found that a small and efficient board such as I have suggested would command the confidence of the people in a way that a centralised and necessarily red tape-bound Government department could never do. Money that is grudged now would be cheerfully paid if results of a positive kind were seen. The fact must be faced that unemployment, even if times improve, will be with us for years, and that no country can afford the drain of having a large part of its population either totally unemployed or, what amounts to almost the same thing, employed in unproductive and therefore uninteresting work. Almost all the provincial districts in New Zealand are separated by some well-defined natural boundary, and each has its own problems and special local conditions. Owing to the conformation of their country most New Zealanders are rather parochially-minded, and this trait would be a help instead of a hindrance as at present. Instead of trying out the scheme roughly outlined above on the whole of New Zealand at once, one province, say Otago, could be separated from the Unemployment Board as at present administered. and the experiment of local or provincial control of the small farm plan and unemployment tried out thoroughly.— l am. etc., T. Naseby, September 4.