OPINIONS DIFFER.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 380, 23 March 1932, Page 9

OPINIONS DIFFER.

Comment on Unemployment Amendment Bill. “ DRASTIC PROVISIONS.” Opinions among local business men differ on the subject of the Unemployment Amendment Bill introduced in the House by Mr Coates. “ The Bill contains some very drastic provisions,” said Mr G. Maginness, a member of the Citizens’ Unemployment Relief Committee. “ One does not like to condemn it as a whole as we are up against difficult times. Some of the provisions are not palatable but what else can be done? The solution certainly does not lie in the scheme to place the unemployed on ten-acre blocks.” The Is in the £ tax was rather drastic and if it was not deductable from income tax it would mean a double tax. If, on the other hand, it could be deducted, the Government was going to lose it in income tax. At the moment there were men on larger blocks than ten acres who were petitioning to come on relief work. If, however, the land was of the best, the blocks would be of great assistance to the unemployed in assisting them with living expenses. If it would debar them from getting relief work, however, the unemployed would be in a worse position than before. “ Some would starve if they had 100 acres,” said Mr Maginness. The Government was not consistent. Recently it was held that the petrol tax should not go to a specific fund and now a new fund was being created, certainly for a specific purpose. The Hospital Boards would be greatly relieved at the transference of responsibility for relieving distress. The great body of ratepayers would share in that benefit. “ Parts are Attractive.” There seems to be a certain amount of attractiveness in the schemes although more information is necessary before one comes to a definite opinion,” said a member of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce. The development of swamp lands would be a great benefit to the country as there were thousands of acres available. An increase in the unemployment tax was inevitable. The Government had probably considered whether or not the amount raised would be sufficient tq meet all requirements. The rural allotment scheme would attract men to the country, and they could spend some of their time working for farmers. There was no doubt that a great deal of good land couJd be brought under cultivation in that way. The proposal to assist gold prospectors was an excellent one, provided the assistance was kept within reasonable bounds. The transference cf responsibility for the relief of distress from the hospital boards to the Unemployment Board was a very desirable change. “ Doomed to Failure.” “It isn’t a policy at all, and it’s doomed tp failure from the start.” declared Mr E. H. Andrews, chairman of the Christchurch Unemployment Committee. He added that he did not know how the Minister expected the scheme to work, but personally he did not think it was any use putting unemployed men on five or ten acres of land unless they were given some capital to start with. He asked: Did the Government expect to absorb all the men in the country districts or did it still expect the local bodies to carry a large share of the burden? lie had no objection to the tax of Is in the £ provided it was levied on a graduated basis, but to expect men receiving small wages to pay that amount seemed to him to be inequitable. Mr J. W. Beanland, a member of the Unemployment Committee and chairman of the Works Committee of the City Council, said that in trying to budget the country to an even balance the Government seemed to be attempting an impossible task. It was all very well putting men on allotments of their own, but that would not be of any use unless an outlet could be found for the produce they were going to raise. Even to-day the growers of produce were complaining of unfair competition from casual growers, and it would only add to their difficulties if a great deal more land was used for growing vegetables for the market. With regard to the wages tax he was of the opinion that if it were raised to Is in the £ it should be levied on a graduated basis.

LABOUR OPINIONS

Wage 3 Tax will Press Heavily on Workers. I he majority of trades union secretaries preferred to reserve their comment until they had been able to study the proposals closely, and until they had some intimation as to the amount of wages that it was intended to pay under the various schemes. While the nature of some of the work was approved, the increase in the unemployment levy was regarded as another attack on the class of the community most unable to pay. “ Exploitation by Highwaymen.” “ The proposals so far as I have had an opportunity to examine them must simply prove all that has been said previously that the poor are being exploited t<j the utter extreme by 4 highwaymen who have representation on the Government benches,” said Mr G. I. I hurston, secretary of the Engineers’ Union. Just how long the victims «e prepared to accept the dictates of the highwaymen ’ is the question. To say that the proposals will treat the problems from the viewpoint of a nation of paupers, scarcely fits the position. I consider that every reasonable person, much less radical persons, will resent the proposals most emphatically. Difficulties Ahead of Workers. “ It is encouraging to find that the Minister of Unemployment has devised a comprehensive plan to meet the problem of unemployment, but at the same time there is an omission of the amount of wages to be paid in the different categories of work to be allotted," said Y 1 I' ■ Manning, secretary of the Workers' Education Association. “ The increase in the rate of the tax will press very heavily on the average worker, particularly when the amendments to

the Arbitration Act are enforced, and wages, to my mind, will have a serious downward trend. The consequences of this will be that the workers in employment will be quite unable to balance their budgets, or, if they do, their families must suffer in various ways. The withdrawal of the Government subsidy to the Unemployment Fund will throw on the Unemployment Board a greater burden of finding remuneration for the unemployed. Particularly will that burden be increased when we observe that the cost of relief, now borne by the Hospital Boards, will be transferred to the Unemployment Fund. Still, this will have one good feature in that it will show the public the total cost of unemployment by the centralisation of the taxes, which they have to pay. Echo of Ballance’s Day. 11 The proposal to organise rural allotments is one which the Trades and Labour Council has advocated for a considerable period, and to my mind is something in line with the Ballance scheme of village settlements organised in the time of New Zealand’s last great depression,” added Mr Manning. “ The general aspects of the schemes are that, if successfully carried out, they will tend to increase production, and will give a certain amount of responsibility, and room for initiative, to the men who will be placed in the rural allotments. This will counteract the deadly influence of work of a nonproductive nature. The extension of camps will be worth while, providing the remuneration to the men employed is considerably increased, and something is done to make life in them interesting. This, no doubt, will call for the assistance of social organisations in providing the special facilities which they have for cultural social amenities. If the Government, or the Unemployment Board, could assist such organisations, then the life lived by the men in the camps could be made tenable. The main factor in the new scheme is that the men will be placed on jobs which will prove an economic asset to the community, and the fact that the burden will be greatly placed on the shoulders of working men with their reduced incomes. This is more or less of a tragedy. Surely the income for such productive works could be secured in other ways, if only by a Government loan.” Will Levy Provide Enough? The opinion that the increased tax would not provide the necessary finance for the relief of unemployment, seeing that there would be no subsidy from the Consolidated Fund, was expressed by Mr H. Worrall, secretary of the Canterbury General Labourers’ Union. So far as the work that was proposed was concerned, unions had advocated it in communications to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Unemployment. Mr Worrall refrained from commenting on the proposal to transfer responsibility for relief from Hospital Boards to the Unemployment Board, but said that no doubt the administration of relief would be handed over to the Labour Department, which apparently had been anything but sympathetic or satisfactory in its efforts for the unemployed so far. There was no provision made for wages or conditions of work, and the success or failure of the scheme depended on that. Another secretary said that the levy of 3d in the £ had been wasted on nonproductive works, and it looked as though the extra levy would go the same way. The whole scheme amounted to another wage reduction for the workers, and the expenditure of less money among the business community.