A COUNTER-BLAST

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 13, 6 April 1927, Page 1

A COUNTER-BLAST

AN UNEMPLOYMENT BILL LABOURITES’ PROPOSALS By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright Reed. 12.10 p.m. LONDON, Tuesday. Simultaneously with. Cabinet’:/ Trade Union Bill the Labourites, Messrs F. Hall, J. R. Clynes, Sidney Webb, Geo. Lansbury, and W. Graham, have brought down a private Bill aiming at the prevention of unemployment. The Bill provides for the creation of a National Employment Development Board composed wholly of Ministers, of whom the Minister of Labour is to be chairman. Parliament is to vote £10,000,000 annually for the board’s purposes, this to be expended in any part of the Empire on works or services or in the form of grants to the Dominions, such grants to be usable for land-transport, mining and electrical undertakings. Grants may also be made in Britain where local authorities may execute approved works, in default of which the board, or a Government Department, may carry out the work partly at the expense of the local authorities. The Bill concludes with a naive provision empowering the board to invest unexpended balances. —A. and N.Z.