UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22710, 24 October 1935, Page 19

UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Some days ago Mr Semple suggested that the reason why the Government kept a surplus in the Unemployment Fund was that it enabled.it to bait the people, prior to the general elections. That, I think, is the opinion of most who have noted the increase in the fund year by year, in spite of remonstrance from all quarters. What other reason could there be for withholding the relief given by those paying the tax in all good faith that every penny of it would be used to give as much immediate relief as possible? Mr Coates would perhaps explain the situation by saying that the Government was taking a long view. To that I would say: Truly! the people of New Zealand are long suffering. Surely it were better to make the best of the present and hope for better times to come That truth has been very forcibly expressed by the writer who said: "Poor and content is poor and poor enough. But poor as winter is the man who thinks he shall be poor." There was never any great demand for a reduction in the tax, even when it was at its highest, and none from the small wage-earners who wera least able to bear it, yet it was reduced while thousands were still feeling the pinch of poverty. If it is the caee that those responsible for the fund are guilty of the move that has been suggested, and from the evidence of the facts that year by year the surplus has grown and that admiration is now being claimed for the way the accumulation is being spent in all directions, one could be excused from deducing the motive imputed. Surely, then, the people will see that such a move shall react on the makers of it and by a counter-move eliminate the chance of making such another. The Unemployment Board has been trying to justify the spending of large sums of money on what they are pleased to call " the small-farm scheme." It has already been called " a complete failure " and " a wash-out." I would go as far as to say that its promoters had brought upon themselves a financial scandal. To place a man on a farm must cost something like £2OOO. (It has been put down at sums up to £I2OO, but without guarantee that further assistance would not be required.) Now, how is it done? Simply by filching from the fund, for the doubtful benefit of a few, that in which every registered unemployed man is entitled to participate. If there were but a few and all could be placed on the land, the position would be different. As it is, the spending of money % from the fund on, for the most part, inferior land, is ridiculous, as shown by the number of farmers who have gone under and, as can be gathered from the struggle others have had to keep their heads above water, £2OOO would keep 12 families in comparative comfort for a whole year, and I take it that immediate relief is the main purpose of the fund. It has now been derided to assist certain industries from the fund, and again I say that that is wrong. If these industries can justify the investment of capital, why not demand that some of the money waiting investment —I have seen it stated there is plenty in the country—be used for the purpose of developin these industries. The fund could then be used for its proper purpose, pending the time when these industries could absorb unemployed labour. When it was adadmitted that something had to be done for the unemployed there was no hesitation in demanding help from even the smallest wage-earner—aye, by some unknown line of reasoning it was thought best to take back part of what was given for relief of distress. How much more reasonable, then, would it be to demand the use of idle capital? There would always be the possibility of paying it back -—it might be with interest—while it certainly would help to solve the unemployed problem. Between now and the genera] election we shall be hearing a deal about putting business men into Parliament, but if we have business men managing the Unemployment Fund, I say they have not

justified their preferment and, lacking either honesty of purpose or intelligence, ought to be severely mixed with people blessed with the sense of right and wrong. I read from a newspaper the other day that a prominent visitor to this country refused to admit that there was a depression here. "I that is true, then we must have been stampeded into thinking there might be, as other couutries had suffered. More than one member of the Government has stated that New Zealand has done more for its unemployed than most countries, but that comparison, if a true one, entirely loses its significance when coupled with the fact that few countries, if any, have so much for so few people. We are not apt to forget, howevei\ that it is a rich country and that we allowed a Government to carry on, while we had continually to goad it on from point to point in order to keep its inhabitants from actual starvation. —I am. etc.. Hopeful. r No money has been disbursed—or "filched," as "Hopeful" calls it—from the Unemployment Fund for the acquisition of land, inferior or otherwise, for use as small farms. The Unemployment Board provides sustenance allowances, up to a maximum of £1 per week, for occupiers of those small farms which are not vet self-supporting. The total amount paid out from the Unemployment i unci for this purpose was about £IB,OOO in the past financial year. It was a legitimate expenditure .in relief of unemployment. Statistically, it is true that the expenditure in New Zealand on unemployment relief has been greater than in most other countries, if not greater than in any other country, and it is also statistically true that there are few countries, if there are any, in which wealth is more evenly distributed than it is in New Zealand.— O.D.T.]