Untitled

Hokitika Guardian, 11 October 1929, Page 4

The Government, it is agreed on all sides, has a large order to nil in dealing adequately with the unemployed problem. iSir Joseph \Vard startled even ms own followers when he made me announcement in the House that the proolem would Le settled in live weeks’ time! Many were sceptical, and rt was thought it was something said on the spur of the moment. However, it has transpired that one of the memoers of the Cabinet Had been working specially on the problem, and that matters were well m train, justifying the definite pronouncement tlie Prime Minister maue. 'the Government, is therefore to be congratulated on the steps being taken, and it would appear that what is being done will deal practically with the immediate needs of the unemployed. No doubt the Government was fully alive all along to the urgency of 'the matter. It had been proclaimed from every platform during the election campaign, and everywhere since it was brought up practically daily. The members of the late Government said in effect the situation was beyond them, so that there was all the more reason for Sir Joseph Ward’s team to rise to the occasion and demonstrate that the situation could be relieved, if not cured. There are many hundreds of men registering up and down New Zealand, and the total to be provided for is growing every day. With the suggestion that 2O'JO will be placed on the East Coast main trunk railway, and over 1000 on forestry work, there is evidence that the back of the demand for employment is well on the way to be broken. In addition to the two classes of work referred to, there are also road works to be taken inLo UM-oiinl and the Main Highways Board will doubtless arrange to provide for several hundred men. In addition the Public Works Department must also play a part, so that in the end the great bogey of a standing army of unemployed to be succoured with purely relief work should be vanished. It will he well if the relief work can be dropped and the men employed on national and reproductive work of permanent value. Railways and arterial roads are a considerable answer, while the planting will meet the urgent needs of some parts of I the Dominion where forest growth is necessary to replace lost hush areas. It would npnenr. then, that all is very promising, and if the issue is as happv as it promises to be, tbo r « wdl be great kudos to the Government for the overcoming of a set of difficulties which contributed in no small measure to tlie downfall of the late Government.