THE WAIPA POST. Printed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. UNEMPLOYMENT.

Waipa Post, Volume 45, Issue 3210, 30 July 1932, Page 4

THE WAIPA POST. Printed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. UNEMPLOYMENT.

THERE is still a good deal of misapprehension concerning the administration of unemployment relief affairs, and the position is by no means encouraging. It has been claimed that the organisation is gradually being perfected, but a dispassionate review of the situation brings us to two major facts. The first major fact is that there is not enough money to provide the unemployed with the work originally intended when the first schedule of relief work was prepared. The second major fact is that the limit of taxation has already been reached, and therefore there is no prospect of the income for unemployment relief being augmented from the revenue of the country as a whole. Had the position been made clear from the start, then the public would not have entertained false notions as to the position. Unfortunately, Ministerial attention commensurate with the importance of the problem does not appear to have been bestowed upon unemployment from the start. Mr Veitch's contribution seems to have been confined to not publishing the figures of the registered unemployed. Mr S. G. Smith certainly reversed that decision immediately he entered upon his term of office as Minister,- but his scheme was brushed aside by Mr Forbes when the Prime Minister returned from the Imperial Conference because it was based on the giving of the dole. He was quite definite in his declared determination that there would be no relief pay without work; and the great body of public opinion was heartily in accord with that view. Then, after Mr Coates assumed charge of the Department—whether as Minister of Unemployment or Minister of Employment matters little—it is hard to follow the progressive steps. One board was dispensed with and another took its place. Then there have been statements by the Minister himself which do not seem to have been borne by subsequent history, jj; s statement when the Wages tax of one shilling in the pound sterling was imposed, that the stand-down week would be abolished, was universally approved, but it seems to have been premature, for outside of the four main centres it is still a dead letter. It may be worthy of note in this connection that riotous disturbances occurred in those four centres, and, as • we commented at the time, the aboli-

tion of the week there ! could very well be interpreted as a premium on riotousness or a palliative that was denied the centers where law and order were observed. It was only through bitter experience that such large towns as New Plymouth, Wanganui, Hamilton, and Palmerston North, besides the scores of others less populous, learned that the standdown week was still to ■ be enforced. This is obviously no way to' run such a difficult proposition as is unemployment relief. The Minister then was called to Ottawa—the term " called " is used for the sake of euphony—and meanwhile the unemployment problem i is reposing temporarily in the hands of Mr A. Hamilton, But why temporarily ? "Why not let that Minister know from the start that his is the responsibility for the success of the scheme to-day and to-morrow and onward ? It is unfair to the problem, to the people, and to the unemployed themselves to have their problem handed on temporarily from one Mini- ' ster to another like an unwanted babp , in an omnibus.

"What is wanted is a clear statement that the unemployment problem is not being regarded as a party political football to be passed from hand to hand with each succeeding rush of the opposing teams. If the Prime Minister is well, advised he will instruct the present Minister of Employment to take the public into his confidence even at this late date. ,The Minister should- "then make a clear statement of what thte position js to date, what income hlsLcome in, and what has been expended, and how and I where. If the people know that::the [districts in which they-are ; livingl^re

being relatively fairly treated, then it will .act as a stimulus to voluntary effort. At the present time the lack of knowledge by the public is acting as a drug upon such effort. The sooner such action is taken the better will it be for all concerned. First confirm the present Minister permanently in this portfolio, and then let him take the public into his confidence, with a constructive and practical policy, not a mass of words that really mean nothing and that indicate to the investigator that the acting Minister in charge of Employment is merely " marking time' until Mr Coates returns from Ottawa. We forimed the opinion before Mr Coates left New Zealand that his duties as Minister of Employment were of more importance to the Dominion than his presence at Ottawa. We may have been ■wrong—but we have not yet seen anything to warrant a change of view.