The Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 1934. UNEMPLOYMENT POLICY.

Wairarapa Age, 7 April 1934, Page 4

The Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 1934. UNEMPLOYMENT POLICY.

, Most people in this country who have given thought to the question will agree that the administration of the Unemployment Act to date leaves a great deal to be desired. In condemning this administration, however, and advancing a number of proposals, the Labour Party has taken up a position as definitely open to objection as that against which its shafts of criticism are directed. The principal proposals put forward by the party are “the abolition of relief works and the employment of men at present workless on productive and developmental work at standard rates of pay for six hours a day and 35 hours a week, and the I abolition of subsidy payments to other than public authorities.” The question of subsidies is arguable, but the suggestion that the unemployment position at large would be improved by employing men at standard wages on “productive and developmental work” is distinctly unconvincing. Public and local body works of one kind and another no doubt are what the Labour Party has in mind, but it is or should be fairly clear by this time that, in the interests of its people, New Zealand ought to spend as little as possible on public works for a good many years to come. As a means of stimulating the expansion of industry and broadening the scope of employment, public workp in this country have been a great. and almost ghastly disappointment. The Dominion has been, saddled with many white elephants, under the guise of “productive and developmental work, ’ 1 on which it is now making a heavy annual outlay. To suggest that unemployment can be relieved or remedied in this way, particularly if external borrowing were entailed, is mere moonshine.

The worst feature of the present administration of the Unemployment Act is that it is tending to stereotype mere relief, or activities that barely escape this reproachful designation. Obviously, too, it would be foolish to expect the Government or Parliament to correct all that is at fault. What is needed is a great drive for the expansion of industry of a genuinely self-supporting kind. A campaign of this kind implies thought and effort by a great many people in all parts of the Dominion, but, developed, as it should be, it could not fail to yield results. The mere relief of unemployment is a condition of affairs with which no self-respecting New Zealander should have been content for more than the period of a ; genuine emergency in which nothing better could be done. It should have been possible to do much better in one year, let alone the four into which our ineffective dabbling at unemployment is row extending. If nothing better csr be devised, it is at least possible for able-bod:ed New Zealanders of normal intelligence to produce their own food and satisfy, by their own industry, many of their other requirements. The cost of enabling people to do this would be a good deal less than the cost of mere Moreover, while the cost of relief goes on indefinitely, the cost of putting able-bodied and industrious people on a self-supporting footing would cease within a comparatively

brief period. The treatment of the. unemployment problem in this way may be called the country’s last line of defence, but it is a line by no means to be despised. There are, of course, many other openings for positive enterprise. The possibility of establishing new industries of any kind, primary or secondary, ought to be examined exhaustively. Are there for instance, no plants, seeds or other agricultural commodities not at present produced in New Zealand, but capable of being produced and marketed with profit? All the intelligence and enterprise the country can boast should be brought actively to bear on problems of this kind. We are descended from people who knew how to make gallant use of their opportunities. Have we lost the

capacity to emulate in any degree the achievements of our forbears? It is most desirable that the administration of the Unemployment Act should be

overhauled, with a determination to improve greatly on anything that has yet been attempted towards ending unemployment. The proposals of the Labour Party, however, fall a long way short of what is necessary. Apparently the effect of adopting these proposals would be to standardise relief, in conditions made as pleasant and agreeable as possible, and to leave the country crippled and burdened for an indefinite time to come.