UNEMPLOYMENT.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, 19 March 1927, Page 9

UNEMPLOYMENT.

MR COATES’S STATEMENT.

REJOINDER by OPPOSITION ; leader.

By Telegraph—Press Association,

WESTPORT, March 18. laid'Ate+ff on ' d Coates’s Jast statcmoMt re unemployment, Mr tL +n H i laud ’ i le£ i der of tll ° Opposito*day f KI that Mr Coates'had ™«r^Lt‘ 0 leply ?? ilis criticism, that roamed men, would not be able to maintam orcfenary families on the relief work wagQ oftered, nor had he, attempted to deal with the objection that unemploVed workers who are members of Unions, ' a g reemonts providing standard Jlrti \° U d n 0 , TCC l uiml to accept tar below th© ai?r©ompnt . th U ! <l +V, dS ‘ Tlic Covernment’s defence that they are not in any way responsible for the causes which have ied to unemployment was completely ausn, ei ed bv the promises contained in tneir own election promises; and, in any case, the plea of shrining income •d'u not seem to square with the Government's lavish expenditure in other channels, and their still more lavish promises of future expenditure. tj, ' n ,e ? >r ’ mo Mniiister, said Mr H. E. -..Holland, was quite entitled to ash for constructive and practical proposals Horn his opponents, notwithstanding .tliah.it wag no part of an Opposition’s v'.SOik-to frame a policy for the party yin office, and he contended that his suggestion that the most urgently needed' roads and railways should be put in hand at once, and unemployed given work thereon at standard wages, was both constructive and practicable. Mr Coates was making the mistake of regarding the unemployment problem as something of an evanescent nature, to be met with a temporising policy, and he seemed to desire that relief works provided should he viewed lin the light of charitable aid rather than as <i recognition of the right to work, and adequate remuneration for work done. From circulars that were now being sent out- to retail houses, by wholesale firms, urging curtailment" of credit, lit was clear tlmt the later recognised the serious nature of__thq economic depression, and when Mr Coates demanded from workers reliance on individual effort, they were entitled to ask-him- to explain how employment could.be-created by individual effort of the worklcss men -who owned neither land m or-..machinery, and had only labour power to sell. The present po'ftion could not be, met bv any half measures. What was reallv wanted was healthier collective self-reliance, which would enable them to get things done.

Finally, 'Mr Coates would not help his own case, nor would he be likely to help the-'unemployed, by abusively describing perfectly fair criticisms as “sonsdlessi aittaejss.”