COST OF UNEMPLOYMENT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 24, 21 September 1931, Page 2

COST OF UNEMPLOYMENT

The recent declaration of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Philip Snowden, that Great Britain's financial difficulties were due mainly to unemployment, the cost of which, in revenue and borrowing, is £100,000,000 annually, should, be a warning to the people and Government of this Dominion. The drain on the financial resources of this country for the relief of unemployment is on a scale at least proportionate to that at Home, and although, fortunately no system of direct "dole" payments has been adopted here, much of the expenditure has — perhaps unavoidably — been of a hopelessly unproductive nature and has thus added to the already heavy burden of unproductive debt under which the country is labouring. Expenditure at the present rate cannot go on indefinitely, if only because neither by taxation nor borrowing can, the necessary money be; obtained indefinitely. What is needed, and needed most urgently, is a plan for the gradual absorbtion of unemployed into the ordinary productive activities of the country. This is the problem which will most urgently confront the new Coalition Government 011 taking office, and by its proposals for its solution will it very largely be judged by the country.