THE "UNEMPLOYERS"

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 281, 22 July 1932, Page 4

THE "UNEMPLOYERS"

In his latest book Sir Ernest Benn remarks that "employers are seldom, if ever, mentioned when Parliament grapples with the question of unemployment.,, The same remark probably applies to the bulk of discussions on the subject in New Zealand. Most attention is focussed on what the State, local bodies and

other organisations are doing for the unemployed, and what more it is thought they should do. In view of the manifest failure of the attack from this direction, is it not time to examine the problem from the employing end? Instead of concentrating on the unemployed, it may be more effective to study the "unemployers" — those who, willy-nilly, have been forced by high costs and bad trade to shorten hands. They wTill increase staffs when it pays to do so. The fundamental remedy is therefore to restore the profit motive in trade and industry, making it pay to employ labour. The present policy of relieving unemployed involves burdening employers and thus reduces regular employment. All civilised countries are perplexed as to how the vicious circle may be broken." Something might well be accomplished if more effort were directed to relieving employers, by reducing costs of government and freeing their hands so that the tendency would be expansive rather than contractive.