JOBS IN WINTER

Hokitika Guardian, 28 May 1930, Page 8

JOBS IN WINTER

SUGGESTIONS BY MR W. D

HUNT « WELLINGTON, May 24. The proposals Ijy the Unemployment Committee for tho development of industries in New Zealand in order to c.pe with tile unemp.oymeiit problem were dealt with Ly Air \V. D. Hunt at the annual meeting of the Econornie Society. 'These indluded the provision of additional winter work, thus helping to balance the great preponderance of summer and autumn worjc required by the farming industry. schemes that would enable workers to tlo some work on their own account which would enaible them to tide over the periods of unemployment, and the introduction of new lines of industry.

It was proposed that an unemployment hoard slioud arrange that in many of the public works as possible be undertaken during the winter months. Two industries which might he profitably undertaken during the winter months were forestry and the trapping of fur-hearing animals chiefly opossums. Last year the total value of the opossum skins trapped in New Zealand was £157,000, and almost all this money went as a reward 1 1) the labour in connection with it Not one-fifth of the areas that would carry opossums were yet stocked. It would take a good many yen.a to have all the forests in the mountain areas stocked, but it would not take much expense to catch the opossums and rernovo them to the different forests, and let the natural increase commence. When once the forests were stocked the industn would profitably employ four or five thousand men. It is estimated that over 100 P men found employment last year for aibout two months of the year.

The opossoum industry would also help to - cope with tiie deer problem. Deer occupied the same forests that would be stocked with opossums and deer skins were worth at present Probably 5s to Gs each. As a side line in connection with opossum trappiiig they would be pi ifitable,

Tlie committee had also recommended that workers should he enabled by the State advances scheme to acquire suitable areas in "losely settled districts and Ibaiild homes on them. Tt was proposed that each man should have enough land to carry from one to three cows, .and jhave enough ground for a vegetable garden, pigs and poultry. Jts owner in a settled district was almost sure to find employment for probably eight months in the year, and if' during the winter months lie was short of work he could live more cheaply than in the town also do work on his own place that would add to its productiveness.Tlie committee, in also recommending workers’ settlements on tlie outskirts of the cities or town, with half an acre or so attached to each house, had the idea that the intensive cultivation of a small area, would bring a number of products for consumption in the worker’s own home, and thus reduce his cost of living; and. further, there was no reason why a surplus should not he grown for “alp

A'Wina.te instruction to these nodule could be made available by the Department of Agriculture. The children brought up on these garden settlements would also have something of a definite nature +o occupy their snare time in a profitable way and wtyi.ld acquire a h-novfledge fitting them to take up land in larger areas.