UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF.

Waipa Post, Volume 45, Issue 3212, 4 August 1932, Page 4

UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF.

Sir, —Many theories have been advanced from representatives of different sections in the Dominion as to how to minimise unemployment. An old adage, one worth remembering, ior it is sound, is that, " No question is settled until it is settled rightly.'-" Bearing on this aspect of the problem I have by me a copy of a Canadian newspaper, the Country Guide, for April last in which the view is expressed that "By and large, the relief works programme now under way will be most certainly the last of its kind. The Government cannot afford to continue the policy and must resort to direct taxation, or in other words the dole." Perhaps, in view of what our Canadian cousins are intent on doing, it might be well for ou State Government to ascertain if there are more practical and less costly ways of solving the problem than the comparatively useless and wasteful system now in vogue. I have also received from a most observant old friend (formely a resident of this Dominion) some views on what the Canadian electors anticipate from the Ottawa Conference. He especially emphasises the fact that, so far, nearly all the delegates are agreed upon as to what demands to make, but none or few indicate what sacrifices for Empire's sake they will consent to, and he tersely puts it, '*■ The public voice is clamant as to what to ask for; but little is heard as to what they consent to give." We in New Zealand have many primary industries hardly developed which, with a reasonable degree of Empire preference drafted on constructive would be an asset. Surely the delegates could devise a scheme which would be both acceptable and profitable to Empire interests in general, and in this way assist in solving unemployment without recourse to enlarging the present relief scheme or establishing the dole.—l am, etc., ARTIFEX.