UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURES.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 May 1930, Page 8

UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURES.

In reply to a deputation of unemployed at Auckland last week the Minister of Public Works declared that it was not in the best interests of New Zealand that figures showing the number of unemployed should be published from time to time. The Minister spoke of “continually parading” the figures as a potential source of evil, but it is probable that a great deal more harm is being done by the publication in some places of distorted statements. The very suppression of the actual facts affords opportunity for exaggeration, and unfortunately there are always people who delight in putting the affairs of their country in the worst possible light. It would perhaps be difficult to obtain perfectly accurate figures relating to unemployment, since men may move about and register as unemployed in different places, but it should not be beyond the ability of the Labour Department to produce sufficiently correct statements at fixed intervals. If everyone knew the truth of the unemployment position it is quite likely that individual citizens would be prompted to increase their efforts to afford relief, but that would not be the most important result of the publication of returns. If the problem of. unemployment is ever to be solved men who are capable of forming ideas with regard to its solution must be placed in possession of all the information that can be gathered. Everyone supposes that the causes of unemployment in this country are numerous; the influence of the arbitration and conciliation system is one, and perhaps the 'most important, and it may be that’our education system has been on wrong lines, that immigration has affected the situation, that land settlement has not been conducted in helpful fashion, and so on. Thoroughly well-informed inves.tigation of existing conditions and their causes must be undertaken, and that cannot be done as long -as information is suppressed. Moreover, the public is entitled to full information concerning public business. It is the Government’s duty to give the citizens information which belongs to them, not merely to tell them what it thinks they may know.