The Daily News MONDAY, MARCH 25, 1935. UNEMPLOYMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 March 1935, Page 6

The Daily News

MONDAY, MARCH 25, 1935. UNEMPLOYMENT.

OFFICES: NEW PLYMOUTH, Carrie Street STRATFORD. Broadway. HAWERA, Hish Street

Discussions in Parliament and throughout the Dominion during the past few weeks have indicated very plainly that the problem of unemployment is still one of the most urgent the community must face. While the suspicion arises that in some respects party politics may be influencing criticism or suggestions, there is little doubt but that the solution of the problem has not yet been found. On the whole the employment'position is better than it was at the corresponding period of last year. The number of registered workless is smaller and internal trade returns indicate that industry generally is on the upward move, although the progress is very slow. Notwithstanding the improvement in conditions the Unemployment Board continues to be the target for much unjustified abuse,, although in some matters a little more frankness might save the board a considerable amount of criticism. It is fairly well known that the board is assisting various enterprises in the hope of creating employment, and with some success. But there is considerable ignorance in regard to its activities in this respect, in regard to its co-oper-ation with the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, and of any other steps the board may be taking to stimulate employment rather than dispense relief to the .workless. Admitting that it is impossible to record progress from week to week in such enterprises, taxpayers are entitled to know what is being attempted, ’ and whether the board’s accumulation of funds is not a policy of giving relief rather than creating employment. So long as that policy obtains there can be no solution of the problem of unemployment. It is of course the easier way to handle the difficulty, but the unemployment tax is already a heavy burden, and the results obtained by the funds so provided are not such as to make alluring the prospect of the tax becoming permanent. Unemployment was one of the chief questions before the municipal conference last week, but once again faith in the efficacy of conferences to bring about practical results was badly shaken. The executive of the Municipal Association was certainly instructed “to go into the whole question of improving the conditions of the unemployed by schemes enabling standard wages to be paid, and in the meantime the board is to be asked to “increase the wages of all grades of relief workers by ten shillings a week.” Such a resolution can mean much or little, and experience forces the conclusion that it will remain but an expression of sympathy with the unemployed in which all the conference delegates could join without committing themselves or the municipalities they represented to any definite action or expenditure. As for the higher wages suggested for all grades of relief workers much consideration is necessary. In some cases even a larger increase might be justified, but if the wages, say, of single men working in camps are to be raised ten shillings a week the Taranaki farmers who have found it difficult to obtain suitable labour, and there are many of them, is likely to question the statesmanship that will make relief employment more attractive than ever. During the past four years local authorities have done yeoman service in assisting the unemployed. So have the Gov-

ernment and the Unemployment Board, though the central authorities have suffered from the rigidity inseparable from bureaucracy, although it must be admitted that a national policy must have strength as well as purpose if it is to be carried out effectively. But all the efforts appear to have been based on the supposition that unemployment is a temporary evil, whereas experience shows it is nothing of the sort. There are, of course, those who can solve the trouble with ease. Give them authority to issue State promissory notes in sufficient quantity and to begin State “developmental works” and unemployment will vanish as night before day. The argument presupposes sufficient faith in the promissory notes to make them negotiable, but it does not answer the question of what will happen when the time for repayment arrives. Moreover such a policy is only glorified relief. The employment created could only last while State funds were available, and then the problem might be still more intense. If the Municipal Association is in earnest it cannot begin its investigation too soon. The tendency of some of the unemployed to lean upon the community is not weakening as the years pass. The only way it can be arrested is by providing normal employment offering a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work.