The Daily News. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1926. UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 September 1926, Page 8

The Daily News. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1926. UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF.

The action of the Auckland Hospital. and Charitable Aid Board in pressing upon the Government a claim for reimbursement of expenditure incurred in giving relief to the unemployed will interest similar boards throughout ths Dominion. The principle upon which the claim is based is one that is beyond all question. Unemployment is sometimes purely local, but such is not the ease at tme present time. It has become a national matter, and a’s such it should be regarded as imposing on the Government the duty of providing a measure of relief for the sufferers. Whether that duty should be discharged by granting monetary doles or by the institution of relief works is a detail to be settled between the Government and the local bodies on equitable terms, but in that matter the Charitable Aid Boards have no voice, although the same ratepayers who have to provide the funds for these boards would have to contribute to the rates levied by the local todies as their share of the cost of relief works. That the provision of work is infinitely more satisfactory than eleemosynary doles is admitted, because there Is, at least, some value given for the expenditure, but in the ease of direct money gifts there is no quid pro quo, and it is only reasonable that the cost should fall upon the nation as a whole. Tn times of depression it is the invariable rule for the unemployed to drift to the towns, and especially to the large centres, hence the greater portion of the country escapes the necessity for providing maintenance for the workless. By no process of reasonable argument can such an unfair condition be justified. The Government, as represented by the Department of Health, admits liability for approximately half of the expenditure on unemployment relief. If the half, why not the whole? It is asserted by the chairman of the Auckland Board that the Premier (Rt. Hou. J. G. Coates) had promised him that if the board would deal with all unemployment relief the Government would be responsible for any expenditure incurred outside of ordinary relief. Apparently the Health Department has no record of any such promise, the Minister (Hon J. A. Young) stating that he had no recollection of any understanding being arrived at that the Government would indemnify the board for the full amount, but that the Government would meet the board in a fair way. Iu the ease of a dispute of that nature, with the Premier absent from the Dominion, it is impossible to arrive at the exact nature of Mr. Coates’ promise, but the public will in all probability arrive at the conclusion that the Premier recognised that the visitation was a national matter and as such should be met and dealt with out of the national exchequer. Although there may be no parallel with the terrible disaster in America consequent upon the hurricane and floods in Florida and other States, there has been no hesitation in regarding that destructive visitation as a national disaster. President Coolidge has taken control of all relief work and placed at the disposal of the Red Cross Society ail the resources of the Government. That is the only satisfactory way in whjeh to meet a national disaster, just as the only effective means to, cope with unemployment throughout the Dominion was for the Government to entrust the Charitable Aid Boards with the distribution of relief doles, and at the same time undertaking to indemnify the boards from the expenditure thus incurred. Even if relief works were undertaken in every district throughout the country there would be a fairly large percentage of the unemployed who would be unfit for such employment and have to fall back on charitable aid. It is only just to credit the officers of the Labour Department with praiseworthy efforts to find employment for those in search of work, but the result of their energies scarcely touches the fringe of the problem, the solation of which depends upon many

factors beyond their scope. All the State Departments are alike in one respect—their disinclination to move out of a groove and to fight against extraordinary expenditure. The principle governing unemployment relief has evidently not been grasped by the Health Department, therefore all the Charitable Aid Boards in the country may well unite in pressing that principle to the utmost in order to secure that a national duty shall over-ride all red tape and be performed in the spirit of justice and equity. After all, it is the taxpayers who provide the money and not the departments.