ANOTHER DISAPPOINTMENT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 182, 26 March 1932, Page 4

ANOTHER DISAPPOINTMENT

The Government's new unemployment policy announced in the House of Representatives on Wednesday by the responsible Minister the Rt Hon. J. G. Coates is in one or two direetions an advance on anything yet attempted. In several important re- -( ypects, however, it is distinctly disappointing. A careful consideration of the proposals contained in Mr. Coates' statement and of the provisions of the Bill which is to implement them, so far as the latter is possible from the brief summary as yet availabie, : diseloses a number of important weaknesses and omissions. The j proposals showj evidence of hasty drafting which, in view of the | length of time the country has been kept waiting for them, and the periodical announcements of the Minster that he was steadily engaged in framing them, appears wholly unjustifiable. In the maiP, they amount merely to an extension on a larger scale of the methods hitherto employed, with the difference that chief attention is focussed upon work on the land instead of upon urJban streets and county roads. In this connection, there is one proposal which could and should be made of great and lastlng behefit to both the country and the individual, namely, the rural allotment scheme for married men. So far as it goes, it follows closely the proposals submitted to Ministers and the Unemployment Board by the Mayor of Rotorua, Mr T. Jackson, and Mr. H. Valder, of the Waikato Social Welfare League. Such a scheme, however, if it is to have the slightest value, even as a stop-gap, requires the most careful working out. Almost unbelieveably, Mr Coates, judged both by his statement and the Bill itself, appears to be wholly unconscious of this cardinal fact. Statements are glibly made that land will be especially acquired with funds provided for the purpose (presumably part of the special unemployment taxation) cottages will be provided and power is even taken to supply such things as light and drainage, etc., but of plans to assist the men, a large proportion of whom must be wholly inexperienced in working the land, to gain some part of their livelihood from their allotments, there is not one word. In the early stages of a scheme such as this, the occupiers of allotments cannot be expected to produce anything from their land and their sustenance will therefore be a proper charge on the unemployment fund, but if the scheme is to be anything more than a mere shifting of men and their families from the towns to the country — in any case a most expensive matter — -it is essential that a Sefinite plan to guide and supervise them in the actual work on their holdings be put into operation. If this is not done, failure is inevitable because either the cost of the scheme will become excessive or the men, finding themselves unable to do any good, their hopes brought to nought, will desert their allotments and return to the towns and the environment to which they are accustomed. It is true that Mr Coates mentions that the men placed on allotments will be able to work part-time for neighbouring farmers, and so to some extent relieve the unemployment fund of the cost of their sustenance, but if he really believes that the farmers, especially during the coming winter, will be able to assist materially in this direction, he must be the only man in New Zealand w.ho does so. It is, of course, possible that Mr Coates has further proposals to make in this connection. In any case, the measure has to pass through Parliament and so there is still ample opportunity to fill in its present very wide gaps, and it is greatly to be hoped that this will be done. The scheme itself fully and logically developed, is capable of being made of considerable permanerit value and there is no reason why every penny spent upon it should not be made in one way or another reproductive. As regards the Minister's other proposals, they are, with the exception of those dealing with taxation, equally open to the chare of quite unnecessary vagueness. It canndt, of course, be expected that he should have gone into minute detail in his' statement, but he should, at least, have indicated that the machinery for putting his plans into operation had been or was being worked out. But of this not a. word. In fact, he as good as admits that he has nothing to add to what he has already announced when he says that the scheme is not so much a land settlement scheme as "an emergency measure which will provide a shelter until the storm has passed." This seems to us to be a wholly wrong angle of approach to the matter and to involve the throwing away of an exeeptional op portunity to solve the problem of the future for a large number of potentially valuable settlers.