NO PASSING PHASE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17945, 24 November 1932, Page 7

NO PASSING PHASE

UNEMPLOYMENT EVIL NEW BRITISH VIEWPOINT 2*,000,000 SURPLUS WORKERS (Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Received Nov. 24, 11 a.m.) LONDON, Nov. 23. It is understood from the King’s Speech and Mr MacDonald’s statement that the Government is tackling unemployment from a new angle. Hitherto, the question has been associated with falling world trade, the so-called economic blizzard, and the temporary collapse of basic industries, and it has been assumed that the unemployed would be absorbed when better times came. The Government appears to have realised that a large amount of unemployment was destined to he permanent, owing to vast daily displacements, due to unceasing extensions of machinery, the cessation of migration, the over-manning in many industries, as, for example, the coal industry, displacements due to reductions in armaments and warship construction, and last, but not least, the post-war invasion by women of the labor market, practically doubling'the total supply of labor. Mr MacDonald states that even when trade is as busy as anyone can expect it to become there will be a residuum of population which, if they were not human beings, might be described as “scrap.” The Government was-de-termined not 'to allow this residuum, which, Mr MacDonald says, will, perhaps, amount to 2,000,000 men and women, to become “superfluous scrap,” and, therefore, regards the problem of unemployment, not as a matter of temporary relief. Mr Neville Chamberlain previously mentioned the figure of 1,000,000 as possibly being permanently unemploy-

The Archbishop of 'Canterbury said that it was a shock to him to learn this from the'Chancellor. It surely was impossible that we should acquiesce in such a permanent burden on the social life of the nation.

The newspapers foreshadow vast Government plans to help the unemployed. It has been decided to divide the country into areas, each with an organiser, to provide work in the centres, allotments, physical training, and educational facilities, and to settle youths on the land.