EMPLOYMENT PROBLEM

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3795, 14 August 1936, Page 7

EMPLOYMENT PROBLEM

TAXATION AND PUBLIC WORKS Quoting from the- last monthly Abstract of Statistics, during the debate in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, Mr W. J. Broadfoot, M.P. for Waitomo, argued that the Government had completely failed in its attempt to solve the unemployment problem. He maintained that the statistics clearly proved that there really had been no diminution in unemployment during the year. The figures for June, 1935, were 39,330 and those for June this year 89,038. One almost needed a microscope to observe the decrease. Apart from that the number of men employed by the Public Works Department had increased by 3711. These works were really relief works. They were not immediately necessary, but they were started in order to employ labour.

By right those men on. public works should be added to the total of unemployed receiving State assistance, and it would then be seen that the Government had made no progress at all. Public works would not solve the unemployment problem, Mr Broadfoot remarked. “We will have to face the position when jobs are completed and men are still demanding work.” Thore was much talk in the Government’s announcements regarding public works of creating national assets, continued Mr Broadfoot. Personally, he doubted if the Government would obtain £1 of value for every £1 of expenditure. The inevitable deficiency would have to be made up out of taxation. The public works rates of pay would continue to entice men away from farm work, and in spite of all efforts to stop that drift it was not likely that it could be arrested. There had been an incerase of 9000 in the number of men on sustenance, he added, and that also was proof of the Government’s inability to tackle unemployment.