THE NO. 5 SCHEME

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 32, 30 September 1931, Page 2

THE NO. 5 SCHEME

The good work which has been carried out by the Rotorua Borough Council in improving the borough by means of the Unemployment Board's No. 5 Scheme provides evidence that in spite of the critics, where the scheme is intelligently administered it can give a fair return for expenditure. Whatever may have been done or left undone in some other centres, there has beep a great deal of work carried out by relief labour in this borough which will be of undoubted value in the future. That, of course, was the primary purpose of the scheme, but too often through lassitude in administration or circumstances beyond the control of the local body, it has been subordinated until it has become a mere means of employment without a due regard to the value of the work for which the money has been paid out. Largely as a result of this fact, the Board has decided to supersede the No. 5 Scheme with another which it is proposed should cliyert relief labour into more definitely clevelopmental channeis. In this decision the Board is unquestionably right, but the case against the No. 5 Scheme is perhaps not so black as it is painted. Rotorua was made good use of it to improve a widespreacl and comparatively sparsely settlecl borough area, and in a number of other centres a great deal of good work has been done to offset some of the many grounds for criticism which sxist. However that may be, it is to be hoped that even under the Board's altered plans, a proportion of relief labour will still De available for borough improvements./ A considerable amount )f necessary work still remains to be' done in Rotorua — the lake :ront reclamation scheme is one instance — and on the lines vhich have been adopted so far, the No. 5 Scheme could still be nade to serve a very useful purpose in this centre.