DEPRESSED AREAS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20480, 5 December 1934, Page 9

DEPRESSED AREAS.

£2,000,000 Fund to Create Prosperity. British Official Wireless. RUGBY. December 3 A Government Bill for the development and improvement of the depressed areas is before the House of Commons and it is expected that the committee stage will be completed by the end of the week. In moving the second reading Mr Oliver Stanley (Minister of Labour) pointed out that the measures contemplated. including the setting up of special commissions, were in addition to other activities of the Government and were not a substitute for them. It was felt that certain things could be done in* those areas better by independent commissions than by a Government department, but this method did not indicate that the Government had any right to slacken in the general task before it, which was the restoration of industrial prosperity. The Secretary for Scotland (Sir Archibald Sinclair) would be in general control of the Commissioner for Scotland and the speaker of the Commissioner for England and Wales. The Bill deals with the relationship between the Commissioners and the Unemployment Assistance Board, which is charged with the general welfare of the unemployed. It provides for two Commissioners to act as liaison officers between Government departments and local authorities; and guards against overlapping by the Commissioners with the work of Government departments. A-limitation on the Commissioners. Mr Stanley said, prevented their undertaking or giving financial assistance to a project carried on for purposes of gain, but the Government had excluded from complete rigidity of limitation some cases which might arise; for example, schemes like occupational centres, small holdings or land colonies where it might be necessary to sell some part of the produce in the open market for money. A second limitation was put on the financial assistance which the Commissioners might give to a local authority, but they would be allowed to give financial assistance to a local authority for any specific works where there was no grant payable by a Government department. A fund was to be set up for the use of the Commissioners. In the first place £2,000,000 would be paid into it. The Government believed that this would give sufficient financial assistance with which to inaugurate experiments on a considerable scale, but it was unable to estimate what the full requirements were likely to be. That depended so largely on the success of the Commissioners' work.