WRONG POLICY

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 141, 11 December 1929, Page 12

WRONG POLICY

UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

GOVERNMENT SCHEME

ME, COATES CEITICISES

An indictment of the Government's policy for the relief of unemployment was made by the Leader of the Opposition (the Eight Hon. J. G. Coates) in his speech at Eastbourne last night. The United Party, he said, had stated that it would find employment for everyone who wanted it, at 14s a day.

A voice: "Better than nine bob."

Mr. Coates: "It is just a matter of proportion after all. (Laughter.) You say it is better than nine. Remember, over 12,000 men were employed 6n different relief works when the Keform Party left office. There arc those who j talk about 9s a day. Let me say this, that exactly what one foresaw has happened. If we are borrowing money for development of our country, surely J.he responsibility is upon those who are administering the country's affairs to see that the country gets a fair and square deal for that expenditure." Ho asked how those present would go about big hydro-electric and other public works. Would they choose experienced or inexperienced men! A great reform had taken place in the terms and conditions of employment of men on public works, and the measure .of contentment that had come to the men had not come from the • United Party or the Labour Party, but from the Reform Party. (Hear,"hear.) A voice: "Nino bob a day." Mr. Coates said that when tho Eeforin Party left office approximately 12,000 men were engaged on public works and the men were probably the best that any country ever had to push through big undertakings. Tho reason, there were no better men employed by the Department was that tho men knew that if they stuck to their work they would have nothing to fear, the agreement with the Government providing for payment by output. If a man. took a contract at a fair Tate, it | was nobody's 'business how much he earned. The quicker the job was done the better for the country. By the introduction of machinery it had been possible to reduce the cost of public works construction, by 40 per cent. The men. earned a minimum of 14s per day, but it was not a bit uncommon for men to earn anything from 30s to £.2, and even £3 a day. The footage cost of constructing tunnels had been brought down in many cases from £15 and £16 a foot to £9, £8, £7, and £6 a foot, and yet the men earned big wages. Machinery and better organisation had reduced the cost to the public and had enabled the best type of men to be employed. The men had looked after their jobs.

Under United Government's policy no less than 500 of those good men had been sent to relief works. The Minister had denied it in the House, but Mr. Coates said he had seen, some public works jobs that had. been practically turned into relief works. Men had been employed by the Public Works Department for seven, eight, or ten years and then had been transferred to relief works. "What he had said was that if they converted public works into relief works, they would not get the work done at an economical cost to the country. He had always held that they should be loyal to the men who had stood by the country when it was wanting its work carried out expcditiously and efficiently. Since the inauguration of the United Government's unemployment relief scheme ho had received telegrams from old Public Works employees with wives and families who had been transferred to relief works, pleading to him to help them. Under the Beform Government's | system of carrying on public works men. were transferred in gang's to new [jobs as other undertakings were finished, and the result was that they were kept together. But under the alteration of policy made by the United Government, he was certain that the country was not going to get an efficient return for its money. To put the unemployed on to public works in the way the Government was doing would mean that the- cost of construction would increase, and that policy was wrong. They were now witnessing the results of that policy. One tunnel job on the East Coast line had been held up for five months. The United Government's administration of public works was a breach of faith and a breach of the contract entered into by the previous Government with the public works men. It was of no use to employ a few men for a few months and then put them off to make room for others, but that was what the present Government was doing.