UNEMPLOYMENT IN BRITAIN.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 February 1933, Page 4

UNEMPLOYMENT IN BRITAIN.

The statements made by the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, contained interesting references to the working out of the Government’s policy in its relation to unemployment. Mr. Chamberlain claimed that the National Government had brought back confidence in Britain’s finances, and with that confidence some recovery of trade had also been achieved. Exports from Great Britain last year, he said, had exceeded those of the preceding year, while in other exporting countries like France, the United States and Germany exports had dropped. Exports could not have increased without an increase in employment in Great Britain, and the Chancellor considered it was by developing trade and not by “panicky, hysterical changes in policy,” that the unemployment problem would be solved. Mr. Chamberlain admitted that the problem was world-wide, and he foresees that it will take some years to evolve its solution. Mr. MacDonald was even more emphatic that io provide a huge programme of relief works would not solve the difficulties of the unemployed. To inaugurate such would, he said, mean that millions of people would be living on incomes provided by their fellow workers. Where works could be shown to be productive and necessary, State aid is being given, usually through assistance to local authority or private enterprise. Restoration of trade was also one of the Prime Minister’s remedies, and his appeal that having first found the way to her own economic recovery Great Britain should then lead Europe by the same path to prosperity was one which had overwhelming support from the House of Commons. So far as indications go, it appears to have an equally cordial endorsement from the country.