MR HOLLAND’S DEMAND

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 20 January 1931, Page 7

MR HOLLAND’S DEMAND

GOVERNMENT’S FAILURE TO FIND WORK FOR UNEMPLOYED (By Telegraph—Press Association) WESTPORT, 19th January. Addressing a week-end meeting of the Westport branch of the Labour Party, Mr H. E. Holland, Leader of the Labour Party, declared that in view' of the financial situation and the serious nature of the unemployment- problem, rt. was imperative that Parliament should be called together at the earliest possible moment after the return of the Prime Minister. The Government had failed in the matter of finding work for those who were unemployed, said Mr Holland, and the Unemployment Board’s policy was lackadaisical and inexcusable. It was being pleaded that the board required time in which to get the machinery of _ its organisation into operation, but he pointed out that the present Government had had two years in which to draft its legislation and prepare its regulations, and there was no good reason for any lengthy delay in applying the scheme. Everyone would agree that both to the individual worker and to the community as a whole wages paid for work done was a far more satisfactory method than sustenance without work, but if work was not forthcoming sustenance must be made available without further delay. They could not- afford to let women and children experience want and hunger when there was no shortage whatever of the necessaries of life in the Dominion. . Mr Holland pointed out that I arliament had made £IOO,OOO available to the board in oi'der that there should be no unnecessary delay. The Minister’s estimate of the annual income from the unemployment levy was £500,000, and there was payablo out of the Consolidated Fund an amount equal to one-half of the total amount of the board’s expenditure, so that the board could undertake a direct expenditure of at least £1,000,000, which was the amount estimated by the Unemployment- Committee as necessary to meet financial needs arising’* out of the unemployment problem. He described as both shortsighted and criminally callous the refusal of certain local bodies and other concerns to provide work on a subsidised basis because of the 14s per day minimum wage.