MORE UNEMPLOYMENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 836, 3 December 1929, Page 9

MORE UNEMPLOYMENT

BRITISH FIGURES GROW, ROUSING ALARM

DISCUSSION BY EXPERTS British Official Wireless RUGBY, Monday. Much interest lias been aroused by the announcement that today the Prime Minister, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, will entertain at luncheon a representative body of economists and commercial experts. Several of the leading industrialists of the country have also been invited. The purpose of the luncheon is to discuss (he present and future pros-pects-of British Industry. The “Daily Chronicle” says the party of economists ami leaders of industry who will have luncheon with Mr. MacDonald at Downing Street will discuss palliatives for unemployment. There Is growing anxiety, and even alarm’, on the part of the Government, at the ever-mounting unemployment figures, and the apparent failure of the policy of the Minister in charge of Unemployment, Mr. J. H. Thomas. Some Ministers desire that outside help be called in, and Mr. Thomas has already been in consultation with industrialists.

Mr. MacDonald is now taking a hand, says the newspaper, and apparently has in mind the establishment of an advisory committee of industry, similar to the Cabinet Committee of Civil Research, which Mr. Baldwin set up. Since June 17 the numbers of unemployed have risen from 1,122,713 to 1,273,500, and they are likely to be over 1,300,000 by January. If things drift much longer the Gove.'vment will find public opinion difficult to control.