UNEMPLOYMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23202, 28 May 1937, Page 6

UNEMPLOYMENT

TO THE EDITOR

Sir,—Most of us agree concerning the necessity for the formation of backblocks roads, and give the Government credit for undertaking this necessary work. There is, however, much room for objection to the policy of making public works the chief method of relieving unemployment. At the present time a great deal of unnecessary mam road work is being done, and a staggeringly large army of men is employed. In fact, public works bids fair to become the staple industry in New Zealand—a state of affairs that will handicap this Dominion for years. To take out-of-work men and place them on such work is not really solving the unemployment problem; it is but intensifying it, and hatching chickens which will come home to roost as very vigorous hens in the near future. The present Government has not relieved unemployment to any great extent, notwithstanding its pre-election promises. It has merely increased taxation in order to obtain money to employ men on public works, many of which are unnecessary and uneconomic; it has increased the already large army of State servants, and is Daying huge sums of money to sustenance men for the task of collecting it. At the same time, farmers are calling out for men, and many other jobs are being offered from time to time, which sustenance men will not. take because they say it would not pay them to do so. Public works cannot last for ever, and there is a limit to the ability of any country to find money for such things. The sky is not the limit. I suggest that the only true solution of unemployment is to get men back into industry, and for the men themselves not to rely quite so much on State aid; a regrettable feature of the present-day outlook of many.—l am, f>tc Common Sense.