UNEMPLOYMENT

Hokitika Guardian, 18 October 1933, Page 6

UNEMPLOYMENT

THE POSITION IN NEW ZEALAND

JAPAN’S VAST POPULATION

{Per Press Association, Copyright)

DUNEDIN, October 16.

Some interesting comments on the unemployment situation in Now Zealand and the overcrowded population of Japan were made by Dr :Regis Chevalier du Brusson, of Paris, who arrived in Dunedin during the weekend.

Dr du Brusson is widely travelled and has mp.de sever.} 1 visits to the East. He said he could not grat'd late New Zealand on its method of tackling the unemployment problem. “I have seen your unemployed working here, there, and everywhere. l

have noticed the work they are given mv.d the way they do it. lam amazed ot your minimum wage, your trade unionism, your regulation of everyone’s work to the pace of the slowest. These things, to my mind, have brought you unemployment, and now you are building up a population that will be like ;i-> *mJny in England—content to live marry, bear children, and be buried on the dole. Millions cf pounds a year are spent to keep people at work they hate. It seems to me to be .foolish.

“It is not for me to tell yon how to manage your fine little down try, with its great future; but I do not think the right methods are being .adopted, and I am .•u*’© that a lot of your citizens do not like them either.

“I wonder,” Dr du Brusson continued, “whether your people, wrestling so hard with unemployment and its many evils, ever stop to consider whht Japan is thinking of you—Japan, with her 85,000,000 souls packed and crammed into ia. territory a little more than twice the area of your country, is watching New Zealand and thinking of its population increase of about 25,000, and comparing that intcrease with her own of more than 600,000—and Jr-pan is thinking very, very hard.

“Japan kntows all about your unemployment and your population. She knows everything that is useful to her, and I cannot say too strongly that Japan is searching for new territory for her people. She ivould like to get out of her difficulty peaceably; but she is so hard pressed that, failing peaceful methods, she will have to adopt others. A'l the" immigration laws end restrictions fin the world cannot keep the Japanese bottled up in Japan after the danger, point is reached, and’it is because that danger point h",s been very nearly reached that the problem is. so urgent and vital.” '■ " 1 ' ■. . ...

LATEST RETURNS .

WELLINGTON. October 18

An unemployed return .issued today. shows the total; receiving relief under No" s“' scheme, excluding gold -prospectors was 48.626, and men on . register's.: .tfftplfi'ced..Jor 'ine%ib:!e- -for relief . for various reasons .4,30:2, •«-. total'-of -52,4)97: r - - •* * ■' ' ■Men on registers whose relief wages arc supplemented for full- time employment, number 3,700. This is from actual" data collected "from 'various districts. The majority are employed by local bodies for .their rationed period of ‘work under Scheme 5, and- given additional days work and remuneration bv .the employing authorities. Workers engaged in industrial undertakings whose earnings are ssubisidised from unemployment total 26,391 including 10,110 farm workers, 6360 building tradesen and builders, labour and 3246 gold miners and prospectors