The Waikato Times With which is Incorporated The Waikato Argus. THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 1925. UNEMPLOYMENT.

Waikato Times, Volume 103, Issue 17365, 29 March 1928, Page 6

The Waikato Times With which is Incorporated The Waikato Argus. THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 1925. UNEMPLOYMENT.

The problem of unemployment is causing much concern in all quarters of the globe, the cables this week telling us that public opinion in Britain, the United States, and Australia is stirred, and efforts arc being made to bring about some solution. New Zealand, too, as is well known, has its difficulties in this respect. The position in Britain is especially interesting. After a prolonged period of disappointment and anxiety, British trade has now, there is good reason to believe, turned the corner, and the immediate future affords ground for reasonable optimism. This, says a London paper, does not imply that there can be any slackening of effort. On the contrary, such success as has been obtained must merely be an incentive to still more vigorous and more carefully thought out endeavours. Not for a moment can the position be regarded as anything like satisfactory while a million persona are on the roll of unemployed. According to official authority more persons are engaged in industry than ever before in Britain's history. The explanation of a state of affairs in which there are more people at work than ever before, while nevertheless the armies of workless show only slight diminution, is the simple one that the expansion of industry does not keep pace with the growth of population. Viewed in this

light, it is clear that the way to turn the slow march towards prosperity into sweeping strides is by the adoption of a bold and well-planned policy of Empire development. " Empire development on anything like an adequate scale is impossible unless the problem of migration is handled with a breadth of vision which has thus far been wanting. This subject was present, we may be sure, to the mind of the Dominions Secretary during his lour overseas, and the British Parliament, doubtless, hopes to hear from him that his interviews with Dominion states'* men have brought a solution nearer. Since the Overseas Settlement Committee was formed in 1919, only 350,000 settlers have been assisted to proceed to other parts of the Empire. Emigrants are not welcomed to the towns of New Zealand, Australia, or Canada, which often have their own rolls of unemployed. The towndwellers are afraid of being submerged by the newcomers, and insist that their Governments shall protect them by restrictive barriers. The road to progress, as has so often been pointed out, lies not in flooding the towns, hut in opening up the immense areas, still almost uninhabited, by scientific schemes of railway and road construction, and vast irrigation works. Freedom of transport is the very beginning of all progress. To dump settlers in inaccessible country would be to expose them to grievous hardship and almost certain failure. But armies of men are wanted at once to make the roads and build the railways upon which settlements could, in due course, be established. These men could go out, not as emigrants to compete for existing jobs, but as pioneers engaged for the execution of a contract. Great Britain has the men to undertake the work. She would gladly find the capital if the Dominions were to rise to the height of their opportunities—-well-nigh unimaginable opportunities.