PROMOTION OF EMPLOYMENT.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 162, 27 July 1937, Page 6

PROMOTION OF EMPLOYMENT.

For npye reasons than one the people of Hastings will feel gratified th§ arrangepients, as reported yesterday, which their Mayor has heen able to make with the Governrnent for the snbsidxsing from the Employment Promotion F"und of works to be undertaken in the borongh, In the first place, of eourse, it will mean that progress may he made at once with desirable projects that might otherwise have been more or less indefinitely delayed for want of finance. In this respect much will, pf cpurge, depend upon the permanent ntility and advantages of the works to be put in hand? some pf which have yet to be determined and to receive ministerial rtpproval. On thig ppiijt, having regard tp the past entirely sane conduct pf munipipal expendjture, there will be but few who will hav§ any misgiving.sIn the minds of mpsf, "however, of even greater importance is the oppoFtunity that is thus given fpr rempving a very eonsjderable number pf deserving men frpm the ranks pf relief and sustenanee to- those Pf renjunerative emplpyment. For the cooperation of the Government and the Borough Couneil ta this direction all will feel thankfnl who have felt heartsore at the spectacle pf so many willing workers nnahle to find anything like full-time employment. In much the same way gratification may be expressed with regard to the movement which the Government has made towards snbsidising the wage to be paid to young men 'ready to take up farm work. It is manjfestly much better that the money hitherto disbursed' in snstenance should be applied in this way, fpr it will serye more than one good purpose, It will, in the first place, take these young folk away from a life pf soul-destroyjng idleness among the Jures and temptatipns of the tpwn, place them in a position to fit themgelves firstly for earning full wages at such work, and eventually for taking a competent part in carrying out any schemes of land settlement the Government may have in view. Very many of the successful farmers of the past have had no better, often Very much poprer, oppprtunity offered for mak' ing gopd for themselves. Whether this schemc will prove a succcss or a failure will depend greatly upQn the response which the young pepple will themselves mahe to it and the spirjt in which they enter uppn their service, a good deal, too, uppn the spirit in which their empjoyers accept such service and realise their duty to make it of educational value to the employees as well as of mere labour value to themselves. But, while plans such as these are to he commended as emergency or palliative measures, they can scarcely be regarded as providing any really full and las.ting solution of thc general problem of unemployment. That will come only when there is a thorough revival of the industrial and commercial life of the community as a whole, and it is for the Government to bethink itself as to how this is to he hrought ahout. It wjll scarcely he thought that the Government itself, let alone the people of the country, can be in any way satisfied in this respect with the general results of its first two years of p ffice, Even the temporary schemes discussed above have been made possible only by the exaction of heavy taxation, from which there is no very great present prospect of early relief, while a mere change in its incidence will aecomplish but little, What the Government requires to do, if industrial re covery in a full sense-is really desired, is to offer some little greater encouragement, or, as it might well he put, some little less disQQuragement, to those who may be in a position eitlier to embark upon new industrial and commercial enterprises and serviceg or to expand thogq already in existence. To this end it is obviously essential that, while wages should be kept up to the standard to which we had become accustomed, there should he some relaxation of the many strangling restriqtions and restraints that have been jmposed upon employers, always, too, with the eventual prospect of being thq victims of further applications of the avowed principle of reducing into State ownership all means of production, distribution and excbange. It is hardly to be expected that those with capital at command will commit it irrevocably to building up wagepaying and tax-paying industries and services, only to be deprived of them— -as. has already been the case — at the will of the Government and on its own terms.