UNEMPLOYMENT PROBLEM

Taranaki Daily News, 19 July 1929, Page 14

UNEMPLOYMENT PROBLEM

A MATTER FOR SELF-HELP. That the problem of unemployment is not unsolvable, and that the position is being made to appear worse than it really is, was the opinion expressed by Mr. A. C. Bretherton, manager of the Perpetual Trustees Estate, and Agency Company, Ltd., to a Christchurch Sun reporter. Mr. Bretherton has taken a good deal of interest in the question, and is of opinion that if the community made an endeavour it could easily solve the problem. “No effective organised attempt has ever been made,” said-Mr. Bretherton, “and the practice always has been to push the burden on to the shoulders of the Government.”

In the course of his business Mr. Bretherton has come into contact with many unemployed men, and he claims that never has it taken him more than twenty-four hours to get a man a joo on a farm. “The attitude of the people,” he said, “seems tp be to ask the Government to solve the whole question, instead of making a genuine effort to deal with it themselves. An organisel attempt should be made to define the amount of unemployment due to seasonal or casual occupations, for at present the peop seem to take it for granted. Freezing workers should all be put on unemployment work when the works close down.” In his opinion casual employment could be overcome if the harbour and shipping authorities would put on a nucleus staff on a salary basis. One of the causes of unemployment, he said, was irregularity of expenditure by the Government and municipalities, but the

1 chief cause was directly traceable to taxation. At the present time the wealthy men of the ’Dominion refused . to invest in New Zealand, but preferred the tax-free investments that they could . get abroad. The result was that about ■six millions sterling of working capital was driven overseas The farming I industry was being starved by taxation. ! He stressed the necessity of the people taking up the problem themselves, remedying the inefficiencies in the national nuichine, an] avoiding serious loss of production.