THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7,1933. THE RELIEF WORK SYSTEM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22052, 7 September 1933, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7,1933. THE RELIEF WORK SYSTEM

The system under which relief work is provided for the unemployed has been subjected to a large measure of criticism, much of it perfectly sound. That it is an unsatisfactory system is* , sufficiently obvisus, It is a palliative, and palliatives are notoriously unsatisfactory, but recourse to them is in some cases almost a matter of necessity. The relief system represents an expedient adopted in default of the discovery of any better plan for dealing with the problem of unemployment and tiding those for whose services there is no present demand over the period of the depression. Any comparison of relief work conditions with those that obtain in normal times is out of the question. The provision of work for those who have the misfortune to be unemployed imposes a heavy burden on the taxpayers and it may be said that they have shouldered this, on the whole, in a cheerful spirit. If the Government were to embark, as it has been urged to do, on extravagant schemes that would temporarily improve the position in respect of unemployment, the ultimate result would merely be that the burden which the country would have to cany would be heavier than before. The relief system being in the nature of a stop-gap, the contemplation of the possibility of its operation until such time as returning prosperity shall ensure the reabsorption of the unemployed in industry has been unavoidable. A resolution adopted by the Auckland Metropolitan Unemployment Relief Committee condemnatory of the system, and the idea of its continuance, is backed by arguments that may be admitted to have a very considerable amount of force. As the committee urges, the effect of the system upon those to whom it has application must be more or less demoralising. A report by the foreman of the Onehunga Borough Council, based upon an extended period of supervision, is instructive as a revelation of the degree of' inefficiency of the work performed under the relief system, but in that relation will only confirm the general conclusion to which most people have been led as a result of their own observations. The activities of the Unemployment Board may, however, be viewed in other aspects, and this destructive criticism serves no particularly useful purpose unless it can be shown that the inefficiency upon which stress is laid can be translated into efficiency under some better arrangement. The suggestion that, in substitution for the present system of relief work, provision should be made for every able-bodied man to earn a living wage is easy of formulation, but it is not very helpful in the absence of schemes to that end that are practicable, especially, of course, in regard to finance. Continuance of the depression prevents the reabsorption of the unemployed in industry. Therefore, an artificial stimulation of industry is suggested. The experiment that is in operation in the United States, of the success of which there can be n 0 certainty, appears to be encouraging the idea that by a policy of currency inflation the wheels of industry may be set revolving more rapidly again in this Dominion, and that avenues for reemployment may be thus created. But there is no parallel to argue from in the circumstances in which the two countries are placed. Whatever may be the outcome of the Roosevelt recovery plan the conditions in New Zealand, which is a country dependent on its export trade for its material welfare, are radically different from those in the United States. An artificial stimulation of industry by the Government, on the lines that have been advocated in some quarters, could only be administered with disregard for hard economic facts. To a renewal of prosperity there is no royal road. It must be to the retention and expansion of markets and the revival of commodity prices that New Zealand 1 must look for a restoration of the favourable internal conditions that were undermined by the collapse of prices in 1930. No policy of “wise capital expenditure ” on the Government’s part can be expected to go far in the meantime towards removing ' the necessity for n continuance of the j provision of relief work. I

THE FRUIT EMBARGOES

The somewhat obscuTe, though widelydiscussed, embargoes and counter embargoes which have exercised fruitgrowers in Australia and New Zealand, were the subject of an interesting review in the address of the president to the conference of the Fruit-Growers’ Federation at Wellington. The public memory is short, and it will be surprising to most people to learn from Mr Brash that the trouble originated more than a decade ago, when both the Australian and United States Governments prohibited the entry of New Zealand fruit, thereby closing potentially valuable markets to the expanding fruit-growing industry in this country. The Commonwealth embargo was imposed to prevent the infection of Australian orchards with fireblight and the American embargo to guard against the possibility that the Mediterranean fruit-fly, which was not present in New Zealand, might be introduced by fruit importations from Australia and transferred to the United States in exportations from this Dominion. Negotiations for even the partial raising of these embargoes were conducted by the New Zealand authorities with a patience worthy of the Edomite emir, but with considerably less reward. The only satisfactipn they could obtain was a suggestion that the American embargo might be raised in the event of the prohibition of New Zealand importations of fruit from countries in which the fruit-fly existed. Meanwhile, it had been found impossible to obtain relaxation of the Australian embargo, even in favour of districts in the Dominion that were not affected by fireblight. Last December the New Zealand Government carried the matter a stage further by declaring an embargo on Australian citrus fruits. A great deal of concern was caused among Australian fruitgrowers by this action, which was based on the prevalence of the Mediterranean fruit-fly in orchards in the Commonwealth, and the concern extended to New Zealand consumers, who were, in consequence of the embargo, deprived of a regular supply of the cheap citrus fruits which may be regarded as a necessity even more than as a luxury. The embargo was ostensibly imposed for the sake of overcoming the objections of the United States to the admission of fruit from a country that was importing oranges from areas infested with the fruit-fly, but Mr Brash’s reference to the subject leaves the impression that there was an element of retaliation in the New Zealand Government’s action. Within the last few weeks the embargo has been relaxed as affecting the importation of fruit from South Australia, as that State is free from the fly pest, but the Australian embargo on New Zealand fruit is still in force, though there is no evidence that fireblight is transmissible in fruit shipments. It cannot be said that the continuance of a virtual impasse after long years of dickering between the countries concerned reflects great credit on any of them, even when every allowance is made for the comprehensible anxiety of United States and Australian fruitgrowers to keep their orchards free from diseases to which they are not at present subject.