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Hokitika Guardian, 10 November 1928, Page 4

-Mn O’Bktf.n had a {rood deal to say about unemployment’ on Thursday night. He seemed to blame immigration in the main as the chief cause, but lie took no notice of the slump conditions which oven forced people off the land and put them in the ranks i the unemployed. Immigration could not be the primal cause affecting that section of the community. But Mr t' Brien had no remedy for the situation—beyond stopping immigration—which has been done already. He proposes to do away with unemployment by giving everybody work at standard rates, but lie does not say how the money is to be provided, excepting Inincreasing the income tax. which if it is to bo on the lines of the English taxation is going to hit folk hard. And if New Zealand is to lie a land where there will be no unemployed and none need be idle, people will flock here and Mr O’Brien will !>e busy placing them on public works. Of course it can only be a brief time when the exchequer will be empty, for if every one is to be drawing wages from the State, where is the money to come from if production drops? Much the same reply answers the scatter-cash policy 01 increased pensions and wider pensions. Where is the money to come from for this proposed generosity to all. People inclined to believe these catch-vote statements from the bust-

ings, should ask themselves how the promises are to be fulfilled. But to return to the matter of unemployment. The Prime Minister has dealt very plainly with it, and made it clear that worse conditions prevail elsewhereand certainly in Queensland, mark von, presents a sorry spectacle. Air Coates has compared the- volume of unemployment in New Zealand with the volume in Queensland where a Labour Government has been in office for several years. In this Dominion, according to .Mr Coates’s figures, the number of unemployed is 1 in 300, whereas in Queensland the number is 1 in 63 of the population. ATr Alunro, a Labour candidate at Dunedin, declares roundly that Air Coates was “not speaking llie truth’’ and that “New Zealand had more unemployed than Queensland.” Whatever the exact proportion of unemployment to population in the two countries may be. there can be no doubt whatever that the evil of unemployment is more pro non need in Queensland than in New Zealand. The evidence of this is provided in the particulars that have recently becw published relative to the payments under the unemployment insurance scheme in Queensland:

The annual report of the Unemployed Workers’ Insurance Department, tabled in the Queensland Parliament last week, revealed that the total amount paid out during the year was £342.297, compared with £263,219 in the previous year. Sustenance payments during the year amounted to £390,336 against £340,033 last year.

I'he unwary should remember that Queensland lias been under Labour for years, and vet unemployment there is tire tangible tiling it is. How then can Mr O’Brien reconcile his promise here with what Queensland has failed to perform there, in point of fact an effective remedy must be found, and Sir Joseph W ard has shown bow it can be done, as it was done before. Becords speak louder than unsupported promises upon which the Labour Party relies.