ADDRESS IN REPLY DEBATE.

Colonist, Volume LI, Issue 12469, 19 February 1909, Page 2

ADDRESS IN REPLY DEBATE.

■ THIRTY. AMENDMENTS. THE UNEMPLOYMENT PROBLEM. London, Feb .18. There are thirty amendment's to the address in reply. Mr Barnes," dealing with the inadequate proposals regarding unemployment, declared. that the twin causes were private ownership of land and capitalism, and' demanded land taxation and the nationalisation of canals and railways, and shorter hours of labour, ending passionately "I would father be outside the. House if time, is to be wasted. The Labour Party would be better employed rousing the country." Mr John Burns, in an \ emphatic speech, which aroused much dissent, attributed .unemployment to violent fluctuations of industry among-. - engineers, shipbuilders, Boilermakers, and the building trade, and -to. the difficulties of unorganised and unskilled labourers. If a tithe of the money spent "in drink were;.used tor ; insuring against unemployment much misery would be saved. The Govern- ! ment were considering the afforesta- ; tion report, and would deal with the Poor Law Commission this, session. The new Irish Land .Bill, by preventing an annual influx of forty ornfty -thousand Irish labourers to the North - of England, would do much. -An amendment of the Old Age Pensions Act would involve an expenditure or a-fur-ther three or four millions. . . Mr Will Crooks described the King's speech as "all window dressinc '■" Labour exchanges were a bogey, and only useful to a few clerks TJn- , less the Government dealt^ with the unemployment this session the Lab9ur 1 Party would raise such ■a • campaign ' that the Government would be sorry , for their great betrayal of the starv--1 in |l P r e °vWton Churchill said the Exchanges were the gateway to industrial security. Unemployment insurance 3d follow later 1 ! Tariff .reform as a solution was mockery, irrelevant, and impertinent. ,■ ■ ■• , _ _ The amendment was defeated .by 205 against 101.'