The Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. SATURDAY, MAY 12, 1928.

Hokitika Guardian, 12 May 1928, Page 2

The Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. SATURDAY, MAY 12, 1928.

THE UNEMPLOYMENT PROBLEM. Some time in 1927, the United States Secretary of Commerce (Mr Hoover), surveying the industrial outlook, declared that ‘‘there was a job for most, everybody.” To-day, it is estimated that there are four million unemployed in that country of supposed hounding prosperity. The public of Now Zealand has heard a good deal about its own' unemployment problem, while in Great Britain the subject has just been the occasion of a Parliamentary discussion. It is hot surprising, therefore. that when rich America reports the prevalence of an evil usually attributed to the influence of trade depressions and hard times the news should he made matter for public curiosity and speculative comment. ‘Widespread unemployment in the United States is to-day a fact.” remarked the London Daily Telegraph on the subject “and its social implications are worth noting in a country like our own, where we were in danger of making a superstition of the American workman’s enviable lot.” Unemployment is a very convenient weapon with which to assail Governments. No one is more ready in this respect than the

average Labour-Socialists. The recent debate in the House of Commons, and the discussions in the New Zealand Parliament last year, show, however, says the Dominion, that while LabourSocialists do not hesitate to blame an opposing Government for not finding a cure they themselves have nothing constructive to offer by way of remedying the evil. The plain fact, of courkc, is that the problem is one which up to the present has baffled human endeavour to find a satisfactory solution. The British Chancellor of the Exchequer, who may be truthfully described ns a hold experimenter, is adopting the expedient of assisting out of taxation revenue certain basic industries which havo been severely hit by the trade depression. The recovery of these industries, it is hoped, will result in the absorption of a considerable number of unemployed, and probably this will afford some relief in the Mother Country. Nobody, however, expects Mr Churchill’s expedient to provide the clue to a permanent, solution of the unemployment problem. The attempt to alleviate the situation by means of the doles system, which is supported in Labour-Socialist circles, has proved a ghastly failure. The Boston Globe, in an article written nearly a month prior to the publication of the Churchill Budget, very thoroughly reviewed the possibilities of the position and strongly opposed artificial stimulation of productive industries as a means of alleviating unemployment. At the same time, referring to the dole system, it remarked: “More than £1,000.000,009 has been taken from the British Treasury for distribution as doles since the war ended, and England has nothing to show for it in public improvement.” This probably is true, hut the worst feature of the doles system is not the waste of the money, but the undermining of the morale of the recipients of the grants—-the creation of a huge body of professional paupers. Several theories have been advanced lo account for the astonishing volume of unemployment in “prosperous America.” One is that it is directly due to such unforeseen events the Mississippi floods, the Florida tornado, the closing down of certain important industrial plants, and stoppages in the bituminous coalfields. Another is that, in the llnodtide of business and wage-earning prosperity wealth has turned into speculative channels instead of into productive industries. One thing is certain, that though unemployment may lie (raced in many instances to ascertainable causes, and expedients for the alleviation of its resulting distress may lie possible, economic science as yet has been unable to discover any practical method of controlling the apparently irresistible play of economic forces, which are at the bottom of (lie evil. We cannot help tilings by blaming Governments', though we may largely assist by refraining from strikes working hard, and spending prudently.