The Timaru Herald SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 1935. CHANGE OF CONTROL.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20077, 6 April 1935, Page 8

The Timaru Herald SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 1935. CHANGE OF CONTROL.

Intimation of the impending transfer of the portfolio of Employment to another Minister will no doubt furnish a topic upon which political quidnuncs will find fruit for discussion. Sir Alexander Young, who lifts held the portfolio for some months, will no doubt experience no pangs of regret as he transfers the burden of unemployment to other shoulders. So far, uo official notification has been made to indicate who will be the new Minister of Employment, but we think it will be generally agreed that the Hon. Sydney Smith, who has now established himself as Ministerial head of the Education Department is the best-fitted among available Ministers, to take up the portfolio of Employment. It is not unnatural, of course, that the majority of the members of Cabinet should prefer the control of almost any department rather than the acceptance of responsibility for the handling of the millions being drawn into the Treasury through the unemployment tax and levy, and for the provision of relief, ns far ns is possible within the limits of available resources, for the less fortunate members of the community who have been thrown on their own slender resources. So far, every Minister who has been entrusted with the portfolio of Employment, lias been severely criticised, and very little credit has been given to the Minister or the Unemployment Board or the many local unemployment committees who have made genuine attempts to face up to the difficult problem to provide relief for distress* due to unemployment. The change in the Ministerial control of the portfolio of Employment will afford a timely opportunity for a complete review of the working out of the Government’s unemployment. policy. Much dissatisfaction has been created by the new scale of relief pay and conditions that was brought into operation at the end of January. Tt is alleged that many irksome and unnecessarily harrassing conditions are being imposed in the administration of the scheme for the distribution of local and national relief. Moreover, the allegations that numbers of the unemployed and their dependents are suffering acute hardship, because of inadequacy of food and domestic necessaries, ought to be made the subject of the most searching investigation. Doubtless the change in Ministerial control will be seized upon by the new Minister as an opportunity to take a broader and more humanitarian view of the problem of providing more adequate relief for the unemployed and their dependents. The new Minister and the Unemployment Board ought to seize the earliest opportunity to make the most careful inquiries and then subject the administration of unemployment, relief to a thorough overhaul. It ought not to be possible for the less fortunate members of the community and their dependents to suffer through insufficient food or inadequate provision for keeping out the cold during the coming winter. Hence it behoves the Government without delay to make Whatever changes are considered timely and necessary in the Ministerial control of the Department of Unemployment, because there are pressing needs that must be met before the coming -of what threatens to he a most trying winter for many worthy members of the community.