UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 94, 11 December 1931, Page 4

UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

Under the caption "They do some things better in Queensland," the Sydney "Bulletin" in a recent issue makes a eomparison between the methods of dealing with the unemployment problem adopted by the Lang Government in New South Wales | where the tax on wages is one shilling in the £ and the estimated | yield for the current year £6,000,000, and those employed by i what it terms the "Tory" Government of Queensland. With the flagrant abuses permitted, if not encouraged, in New South Wales we are not concerned, but the Queensland methods are worthy of the notice of the Dominion authorities responsible for the administration of the unemployment fund. The fact that, until recently, the Queensland wages tax was the same as New Zealand's, namely one penny in each 6/8 of wages or salary, makes the figures given additionally pertinent. "In Queensland, a 'Tory' Government," says the "Bulletin," "with an enterprising Minister of Labour and Industry, has made the most of a tax of 3d in the £ (really ld in the, 6s 8d) , recently raised to 6d in the £ because of the fall in national income. It keeps the people fully informed of what it has done with their money and what it proposes to do, and invites them to take a personal interest in the unemployed by joining the Social Service League^ which on June 30 had 26 branches in the metropolitan area and 28 in the country. Issue of rations for which no return is expected is confined to 'men who are travelling through the State in search of work' (they are 'largely recruited from southern States'), men with doctors' certificates, unemployed women (who may get at least a day's work per week making clothes for the unemployed), and 'women in necessitous circumstances through various eauses.' Men are given 12 weeks' work at the rate of £3 per 44 hours for the married and £2 10s for the single, on water-conservation, rail-way-construction, land-clearing, afforestation, road, bridge, drainage or reclamation jobs. They are then set to do 'intermittent relief work,' at which they may earn up to £2 4s for four days, until they are eligible for another 12 weeks'. With the help of private landowners and organisations, families are being put on small holdings ; many intermittent relief workers are housed in huts rent-free ; for the boys there are f arm and vocational-train-ing schemes; for the girls, training in domestic science. From April 28, 1930, to June 30, 1931, £702,640 was raised by the tax, and £669,370 was spent on 'payments to constructing authorities, etc.' (that is, in providing work) , administrative expenses being kept down to 4.4 p.c. Monthly registrations of unemployed diminished from 28.721 at the end of January, 1931, to 22,403 at the end of June. The Queensland Government has issued a 46-page report, illustrated, in which practieally every pound of the relief expenditure is accounted for. Through it runs an obyious determination to give the people a good return for their money, and in the maintained morale of their unfortunate fellow-citilens — the preservation in so many breasts of the will to labour and of hope — they are getting the best return possible. It is a fine record of achievement." On the figures it most certainly is, especially by comparison with the'wasteful dole system adopted by New South Wales. Nothing so stupid as that, fortunately, has been adopted in this Dominion, but nevertbeless Queensland has done a great deal better in many ways than New Zealand has. There the Government has concentrated on productivg work, while at the same time it has made provision for the relief of real want in cases where work could not be provided, The State's success may be judged by the fact that, despite higher average payments per man, it's unemployment relief has cost it less in the aggregate than the Dominion's has and may reasonI ably be credited with some part in the reduction of unemploy1 ment disclosed by the figures.