UNEMPLOYMENT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 252, 15 June 1932, Page 4

UNEMPLOYMENT

N.Z.'S POSITION SIGNIFICANT TABLE OF INCREASE IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES WORKLESS IN AMERJCA Statistics now compiled by the International Lahour OfS.ce at Geneva show the alarming increase of unemployment throughout the world coiupared with last winter, states The Bulletin (Glasgow, March 2). One of the smallest increases in unemployment of any country is that of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which shows an increase of 7 per cent. compared with the corresponding period last year. The greatest increase is that of France, with an increase of 523. j>er cent. Poland is the only country to show a decrease— namely, 4 per cent; Other countries' increases in unemployment (in percentages) are: — New Zealand, 508; Belgium, 98; Finland), 73; Czecho-slovakia, 57; Italy, 53;' Demark, 49; Canada, 25; Germanyj 24; Norway, 21; Irish Free State, 18; Australia, 11. . .Alarmed by the serious industrial situation, influential public men in the United States are joining in a demand for unemployment insurance. "No government has so misled tbe public as to the seriousness of the problem as ours," says a declaration by a joint committee on unemployment which is receiving widespread snpport. "There are daily attempts to obscure the issue by irresponsible attacks on the British unemployment system, the so-called 'dole'." It is pointed out that there are no bread-lines where unemployment insurance operates while "doleless*' America has witnessed over eighty bread-lines in one city alone." At this moment, it is declared, the Administration's officially-appointed committee is "bazenly contemplating the placing of nearly 30,000,000 persons on the most degrading dok system ever undertaken by any nation." It is demanded that the Federal Government should at once institute an unemployment insurance scheme and large programmes of work, and " pass an emergency law reducing the hours of work in industry to six a day, five days a week, with no reduetion in the total weekly wage. "The productive power of the workman in America," it is said, "has 'increased within the last fifteen years at least 40 per cent. There has, however, been no corresponding reducf-ion in the hours of lahour."