WORK FOR UNEMPLOYED

Hokitika Guardian, 20 July 1926, Page 2

WORK FOR UNEMPLOYED

THE MINISTER'S STATEMENT. AA ELLINGTON, July 15. A criticism of the Government’s immigration policy as one of the factors .in causing unemployment was initiated by the Labour Opposition when the annual report of the Immigration Department was presented in the House. This led to a statement regarding the number of men found employment to tide them over the present unemployment situation being supplied by the Minister of Public Works, the Hon K. S. AYilliams. The Minister said that the number of men for whom work had boon authorised was 901, and the number actually employed was 71G. In some instances. men had not taken advantage of the offers of work that had been made to them, and that was a matter for disappointment to the officers of the Public AVorks Department who had been trying to find employment for the men. For instance, a number of Hikurangi miners were reported to he out of work, and arrangements were made to employ fifty of them on railway works. Tents and equipment were provided, hut only twenty-one men turned up. Their places, however, were filled by others. In AVellington, too, some men, had declined to take work at Kaitoke.

Mr M’Keen (Wellington South): They were married men and could not keep two homes. • The Minister said that the onus of finding work was on the individual, but in difficult times like the present it was the duty of others V> assist. So far as public woms were concerned, the difficulty as he saw it was to find employment for unemployed on work that would be remunerative to the country. He wanted to avoid, if possible. interfering with the programme of works laid own for regular employees to carry out. In addition to the men taken on by the Public AVorks Department, forty-five men had been given employment by the Forestry Department. Afforestation, in the speak, er’s view, was a very suitable work on which to employ men who were unemployed when seasonal industries closed down. Ho thought that the Public AVorks Department was doing what it could to find work for the unemployed.