THE UNEMPLOYMENT BOARD’S VIEW

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22365, 12 September 1934, Page 15

THE UNEMPLOYMENT BOARD’S VIEW

A COMMENDABLE EFFORT “MENTAL STATE OF FEAR’’ ADVANTAGES OF SCHEME Mr W. Bromley, chairman of the Unemployment Board, deals with the prospects and outlines the possibilities of the local effort in the following pronouncement: — The Bristol scheme derives its greatest advantage from the inherent difference between official (and therefore impersonal) and private enterprise. If the measures of official authorities, in any sphere, could capture the live and active interest of whole communities in the way that the Bristol scheme permits, they could foci relieved of half their problems. This applies with special emphasis to unemployment relief. The Unemployment Board, for instance, has first to devise works and then endeavour to induce public interest in the objective ill view. The Bristol scheme reverses

the process and utilises the spontaneous interest of citizens to produce a list of works. One sometimes hears the saying that one-half of the world does not know how the other lives, expanded by the cynical addition that it docs not care. I believe such a charge of .indifference is unjustified, and that the public in general arc more than willing to do whatever they can personally, in addition to their taxation, provided they can feel persuaded their efforts will produce an immediate and effective benefit for somebody in particular. In other words, people like to see actual results, which are more convincing and satisfying to them personally than the knowledge that their taxation has contributed to results that arc apparent to them only through the medium of national statistics. The essential distinction, therefore, between the Bristol scheme and official unemployment schemes is that, whereas the latter organises and concentrates national resources into impersonal channels, the Bristol scheme organises the direct personal will and ability of individuals to help, and gives the means for the visible, prompt and local expression of that assistance.

While the Unemployment Board may therefore envy the sponsors of the Bristol scheme in Dunedin their advantage in the means to arouse and utilise the vital spark of personal interest of citi-

zens, it can, in my opinion, see in that •scheme nothing but benefit to its own efforts to deal with the unemployment, problem. On general considerations the Bristol scheme in Dunedin is bound to produce, by its repercussions, assistance to the board’s house building scheme and various land development schemes. But the object of encouraging wise and immediate expenditure involving the employment of labour at standard wages is specially timely, from the Unemployment Board's point of view, owing to the efforts which it is using at present to spread the idea of standard wage full-time employment among employing authorities who utilise labour at present under Scheme No. 5. Those who have had cause to study the problem of unemployment know well that, quite apart from the material factors of economics, which no doubt contain the root causes, that perhaps over-done term “ psychology ” has a very real effect in aggravating unemployment from small beginnings to serious proportions. In other words, the fact of unemployment causes a mental state of fear and apprehension, perhaps long before any real danger threatens) and stifles personal and commercial enterprise. This condition, which is a mental one only remotely connected with first

causes, produces in turn further unemployment. In result, unemployment breeds unemployment through fear. I would like to put the point of view' that, given the will to shake off, or at least to ignore, this negative product of psychology there is no real reason why the opposite effect cannot be produced through the same medium. Employment can be as contagious as unemployment. But wo need to substitute in our minds a stsjjfc of hope and confidence for fear aud timidity. It may be said that this is mere theorising. Very well then, let it be put at once to the test of practical experiment through the opportunity now offered iu Dunedin by the introduction of the Bristol system. The occasion offers the ideal combination of forces for such an experiment, and the hitherto lacking chance for unity of effort by private citizens, commercial institutions, and local government authorities. The knowledge that on the*ultimate results depend the present anxious hopes of probably hundreds of Dunedin citizens who arc iu need of a real job once again must invest the trial of the scheme with an interest more appealing than a merely academic experiment in psychology; and I hope that every citizen who can possibly contrive a job for someone will allow full rein and give effective expression to generous feeling for those less happily situated. .