FURTHER UNDERTAKINGS

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20207, 29 May 1937, Page 6

FURTHER UNDERTAKINGS

Evidence that the Government is approaching the second stage of its policy is accumulating rapidly. The official journal of the Labour Party has stated that the formation work on some railway and other large undertakings is nearing an end. “ The Minister, it is understood, is now putting the finishing touches on a plan which will result in the provision of further work for those men who have given such splendid service to the community. As a result further necessary public works will probably be put in hand at an early date.” The Government has claimed credit for providing employment for some 18,000 men on public works and the Labour journal states that “the Minister has repeatedly declared his intention to keep together the fine body of experienced Public Works men which has been built up since' the Labour Administration came into office.” That assumes that there will be a permanent policy capable of employing up to 18,000 men, for that is the only way in which they could be kept together. It will be admitted that, in a time of industrial depression, the provision of employment on public works is as good a way as any of affording temporary employment for able-bodied men, and the previous Government certainly laid itself open to criticism when it suddenly contracted its works programme. Such a course inevitably increased the difficulties that confronted the country. But that can be granted without making any admission that an active works policy can cure unemployment. The experience of other countries has shown that the course is impracticable. It does provide employment, but it does not solve the problem, for the work is temporary. Once the job has been finished then either the men engaged must be put off, and so swell the ranks of the unemployed once more, or some other undertaking must be found simply in order to keep them occupied. That is the' position developing in the second stage of the Government’s record of office. Work of this nature is a palliative and not a cure. If it could be shown that a number of the men formerly engaged on the work had acquired holdings along the route of the new' railways then to that extent the volume of unemployment would have been reduced for they would have been permanently placed. A country cannot cure unemployment by means of public works, however large they may be, and that fact is becoming apparent as the major undertakings of the present Government approach completion. The problem will recur again and again as various works are finished. The time miyst come when the continuance of a fine body of 18,000 experienced men will itself be a pressing problem, for while there may be works classified as necessary to-day there is a difference between what is necessary and what is thought desirable. With States, as with individuals, what is desirable sometimes has to wait until it can be afforded. The 'second stage should bring home to the authorities the fact that their policy for the first period, while, admittedly, it relieved the pressure of unemployment has not brought the Dominion much closer to a solution of that knotty problem.