The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is in corporated the West Coast Times. FRIDAY, JULY 3, 1931. HELPING UNEMPLOYMENT.

Hokitika Guardian, 3 July 1931, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is in corporated the West Coast Times. FRIDAY, JULY 3, 1931. HELPING UNEMPLOYMENT.

There can be little doubt that the Government has done and is doing its best to help unemployment. When the Prime Minister returned from Eng. land and after viewing the effect of the “dole” system in the United Kingdom, resolved the proposal to> make sustenance payments Imre should not take effect, most people applauded the decision. The Government then inaugurated a payment for work system, the days being rationed. A levy was struck to assist in meeting tile cost, but the depresison increased, unemployment grew abnormally, the schemes with all their shortcomings finding favour with the workless, and the cost grew beyond the means available. The Government has received much criticism for not being more generous with the supply of funds to maintain more regular work, but it has been made plain that money is needed, and it is not available. Every effort has been made to do the best with the funds at hand, but still there are both complaints and criticism. In connection with the subject it is interesting to note that the unemployed are now organising, and propose to lay down conditions about work and workers. The Otago Times referred to the Wellington message reporting a meeting in favour of the formation of a national organisation of those who are depending upon relief work to enable them to make a poor livelihood. The report, said the paper, absurd though the whole conception of the organis. ation might be supposed to be, must be taken seriously and examined in its practical aspects. It is to he assumed, in the first place, that the national organisation will require to be maintained in existence by the methods which are ordinarily used in such ease. The unemployed may be asked, therefore, to furnish the funds with which to pay the expenses of delegates attending the meeting of the organisation. And, the organisation having been formed, the next step naturally will be to “organise” those who are out of work, and doubtless to make upon each of them a levy from his meagre relief wage in order that the new association may be enabled to function worthily and that organisers may be kept in billets. This suggests that the organisation may prove a rather costly luxury for men who are i.

forced to conserve each penny in order to provide themselves and their families with the necessaries of life. Whether the organisation can be of any possible use to its members is more than doubtful. The plain truth of the matter is that the Government is doing its very best, .according to its lights, to assist, the unemployed, and it is satisfactory, also, to know that a great many citizens in Dunedin and elsewhere are exerting th fin selves to relieve the distress which the' workless condition of large numbers of decent and respectable men entails. Those among the unemployed, if they actually belong to the ranks of the unemployed, who are apparently anxious to place unemployment in New Zealand upon a permanent business basis, have already given an indication of the uses that eoukl be found for their organisation. A resolution has been passed advocating a refusal to pay the unemployment levy, and the action of the coal miners who have expressed their determination not to pay the levy has been endorsed. This resolution is definitely one of opposition to, and of defiance of, the law as it stands. The Government prepared the. relief of unemployment programme with only one object in view, to assist to the limit of its powo’vS those who' are n»v happily deprived of their Ordinary work, and anything in the' nature of obstruction of this programme can only he regarded ns fcolisli and futile. Fortunately it is not conceivable that the majority of the unemployed are disposed to attack the Government for doing its best to provide for their needs. It seems reasonable to conclude that the organisation of unemployed is inspired by that minority which can never be said to he unemployed so long as there is work for idle and mischievous hands to perform.