The Grey River Argus THURSDAY, September 23, 1937. REDUCTION OF UNEMPLOYMENT.

Grey River Argus, 23 September 1937, Page 4

The Grey River Argus THURSDAY, September 23, 1937. REDUCTION OF UNEMPLOYMENT.

Boards and inquiries used to be a great resort with the last Government, They referred the unemployment problem seven years ago to some committee or other. But after the mess his own administration made of this matter, it is rather surprising to find Mr. Forbes once more trotting out the idea, of making unemployment the subject of an inquiry. The Nationalist papers have editorially endorsed his suggestion as eagerly as they endorsed the dole policy. They now refer to the fact that 38,000 remain on the register as a “social cancer,’’ but when the number was twice as great they were as silent as they could be. The Acting-Minister of Labour is justified in claiming that this Government has broken the back of unemployment already. Of the number registered, he points out, there are eight thousand physically or otherwise incapable of work, and another eight thousand are partially incapable. Thus the nineteen thousand men who arc on sustenance are very largely accounted for by incapacity. Two thirds, at least, of the total on the register are men located in the large centres. Under pro-depression conditions there always were some thousands idle in those centres. What Mr. Forbes and his press backers have in mind is probably a reduction in relief expenditure, or, more precisely, in taxation to reduce unemployment. The Nationalist press calls for an intensified documentation of the poor—a means test, no doubt—as well as any amount of data regarding age, health, experience, and character. What good would it be, The Government has done far beter than that by establishing the bureaux whereby a great many unemployed have been placed in industry without the degradation of undue regimentation and examination. If Mr. Forbes is to cut any ice at all, he must define a method of reducing unemployment more speedily than it is being reduced. It would be just as easy for the Government to delegate some board or other to search for new expedients, but the Government have the example of failure in this regard that the previous Government presented. It is a safe bet that the National Party has nothing better in view for the unemployed than to find more of them a boss, even if it meant a lower standard of living than the present. It is any odds that Mr. Forbes and his colleagues do not contemplate offering the unemployed any chance to become the owners of anything, or anywise independent of an employer. That is why they and. their press prate about “classifying’’ the unemployed. Mr. Forbes says that a remedy may be such as to involve a reduction in taxation. Does he mean an increase of 'coercion? Does he consider times have so far improved that employers can be expected to engage more workers provided those workers are deprived of any alternative? There may be some lack of farm labour, but it can be remedied by making such labour more attractive —that is, by making it more remunerative. There is a radical difference in the way in which the unemployed are regarded by the Government and the way in which they are regarded by the Opposition and those whom the latter represent. It is indicated by the very terms used. The Government consider those out of employment as citizens entitled to at least a comfortable livelihood. The Opposition, to quote their own term, took upon the unemployed only as a “problem,” and this because taxation is entailed in the process of getting them gradually back to work and in the meantime enabling them to live on at least a higher level than that of mere pauperism. In short, the Government does not consider the pressure of want as a useful expedient, whereas its critics do so regard it.