UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

Taranaki Daily News, 30 April 1930, Page 11

UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

HOW TO ATTACK PROBLEM. SOME SUGGESTIONS. Suggestions for the relief of unemployment in New Zealand were made during a discussion on the subject which took place at a meeting of the Wades-town-Hig’hland Park Men’s Society, Wellington, last week. At the request of the society, Mr. R. A. Wright, M.P., opened the .discussion, ami Mr. G. L. Stewart was chairman. The meeting was well attended.

It was common knowledge,, said Mr.. Wright, that unemployment was far. more than a national problem to-day. It was a world problem, and one of great difficulty. One method of attacking it consisted of dividing the unemployed into classes of different kinds and then considering what could be done with each class separately. Four different sections of unemployed persons seemed fairly clearly defined, Mr.. Wright continued. First, there were the weak, delicate and maimed; then came the indolent and downright lazy; these were followed by a section of constitutionally dull, slow and sub-normal people; while the last group consisted of normal and willing workers: For the employment of the first and third classes, said Mr. Wright, land near the city could well be used. They could be put to grow vegetables and sell them, to carry on honey production, egg production, pig-raising and other similar occupations. This work would be carried out under supervision. Discipline of a strict kind would be necessary, under a controlling body that was non-pqlitical. In this way the unemployed wpuld be trained in self-reliance and independence. The lazy and indolent should be forced to work. Good-hearted people had to bo taught to refrain from helping; this sort of person, said Mr. Wright, and the public had to be educated to understand that generosity could be misguided. The industrious should net be compelled to support professional loafers.

Two principal methods might be used for the relief of unemployment among normal and willing workers. Genuine sympathy for those people was felt by everyone*. Stimulation of secondary industries would absorb many of them, and utilisation of waste lands would take the rest. If they were to develop land, however, the embryo settlers should be selected. Assistance would be given to them in the form of wages until the land was in good condition. Houses and everything necessary, including artificial manures, would have to be supplied. The wages paid to such settlers would have to lie considered carefully,. ■ Mr. Wright referred to the full wages on relief work arid the effect they had had in causing people to leave the country for the. town.

The unemployment committee’s “sustenance allowance” was criticised by Mr. Wright as a bad suggestion, and he referred to cases where independence had been sapped by the application of a similar measure.

Mr. Malcolm Fraser (Government Statistician) explained to Mr. Wright that the unemployment committee suggested the sustenance allowance only as a last resort. General application of it was far from the committee’s ideas. He outlined the work that t*he unemployment committee had done, and elucidated its report. (Mr. Fraser was a member of the committee.)

Mr. W. D. Lamble (Deputy-British Trade Commissioner) expressed the opinion that the problem of unemployment would always be present in some form. Iti was usually due to maladjustment of supply and demand owing to seasonal; fluctuations, cycles of depression, changes of industrial methods and other factors, the effect of which could not be altogether eliminated. Dr. E. Marsden (Director of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research) said that one of the main drawbacks to secondary .industries in New Zealand was the present patent law. Patents could be registered in New Zealand which prevented the manufacture here of goods that were manufactured overseas. In many cases, said Dr. Marsden, patents should be unobtainable here unless the overseas applicant established a manufacturing plant.