UNEMPLOYMENT.

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 1600, 31 May 1924, Page 14 (Supplement)

UNEMPLOYMENT.

»'A COMPLEX PROBLEM" "Don't be afraid of the term revolution; it only means turning the wheel; what matters is Hie pace at which the wheel is turned," said Rev. •\ Ailslie Yeates, lecturing as the Chapter House, Sydney, on "Unemployment in Australia." The problem of unemployment, Mr Yeates affirmed, was so complex that no short cut was likely to be found. The scant attention paid to it by the community, as a whole, showed that people were more concerned with business profits than in human welfare The policy behind immigration should be to solve the unemployed problem by making Australia more self-supporting, and nol to use immigration as a means for bludgeoning down wages. Their vast, spaces needed filling, hut always with a view to the general prosperity of the community. "Governments are stupid things, and heads of departments are more stupid," said Mr Yeates, when discussing the remedies for unemployment U immigration was to help solve and nol. accentuate the problem !of unemployment, Governments should be anxious that the right people were brought to Australia in Lhe right wav. ralhcr than that their I officers should get credit for the nuiuI per id' people they sent out. ! Make Australians more Welcome.

opportunity should be given to our vouug people to go on the land so that ilie sou of the poorest as well as the wealthiest, if lie were fitted, should be able to take up a decent holding. The Government had been more concerned in placing immigrants I ban in Hading opportunities for young Australians. They needed to make young Australians more welcome in their own land than they were at present. The right kind of immigration and more and more irrigation were two essentials. Among other remedies advocated by Mr Yeates was a properly organised "system of Government labour exchanges, and the abolition of all private exchanges, so Lhat every need and everv man out of a job should be registered. The need was for more apprentices, and more vocational training, so that young men might he attracted from blind-alley occupations. If was a fact, however, that at present not one industry in Australia was employing ils full, quota of apprentices. There was room for some council of advice to guide young men in the choice of a trade. In the mailer of finding work, Mr Yeates urged that much more could lie done. The fact was that the Governments were not flunking about this thing as Ihey were about winning Hie next general election. Individuals could do more than Ihey did in helping men lo find work, and I lie spirit prevalent during the war should slid b c abroad ill big commercial houses. Unemployed insurance must come in \us!ralia'. Where men were unemployed through no faull of their own, if was not charity Ihey should receive, but their right. Public Conscience. At the bottom of all this uneiii•plovment question, and the root of it, Mr Yeates asserted, was the necessity for awakening the public conscience. When the public conscience bad been awakened, Governments would wake up, and public, departments would get busy. If unemployment had not reached alarming proportions in Australia, ihey should be warned by L'tc conditions prevailing . elsewhere, and resolve Lo stamp it , out-