UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURES

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 302, 16 August 1932, Page 4

UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURES

Some explanation is certainly due regarding the statement concerning the unemploymejit accounts made by Mr. C. II. Chapman, M.P., on Saturday. According to Mr. Chapm the figures set out in the qu.arterly accounts show a credit balance in the Unemployment Fund at June 30 of £987,277, or over ten . times the balance at June 30, 1931. The figures showed, he claimed,- that the unemployment cash balance at June 30, 1931 was £69,115 but that by the beginning of April last it had increased to £184,966. Turning to the expenditure side of the account, Mr. Chapman claimed that the amount shown as paid out during April, May and June of this year was £113,067 less than for the corresponding period of the previous year. In one sense, it would be encouraging to discover that Mr. Chapman is correct in his reading of the figures, but in another, it would convict the Unemployment Board of grossly misrepresenting the position. We cannot conceive, however, any reasonable purpose for paintlng the picture any blacker than it already is; the concern of the board, so far, has j been rather in the oppos'ite dirj ection. We can , hardly see the I board accumulating this interI esting little nest-egg for present- | ation to the taxpayeis at Christmas or on some other appropriate occasion; aiid however much v^e would rejoice to see Mr. Chapman's accountancy vindicated, it apjpe^rs to be altogether too good to be true. Various members of the House from time to time have persuaded figures to perforin some extraordinary acrobatics, and the gen.eral public may be excused froni regarding Mr. Chapman's statement as perhaps anotHer example. But until some explanatory statement is made by the Unemployment Board, they stand uncontradicted. The public of New Zealand has been repeatedly informed by the board and the Minister for Employment that the accounts are at a low ebb, ancl have figuratively been presented with a picture of the unemployment authorities strenuously striving day by day to bring their income within the scope of the tremendous calls made upon it. It is hardly to be expected, were the position as Mr. Chapman represents it, that the board wculd have withheld the good hews from the public. As the matter rests at present, we may venture the opinion that no one would be more pleased to find Mr. Chapman correct than the Unemployment Board. In the meantime, however, there is this implication to be drawn from. the statement. Yarious attempts to balance the Unemployment Board's budget, on the figures provided, Have puzzled many more people than Mr. Chapman and in spite of the board's reiterations of poverty, there is a prevailing impression that the funds should represent a much more satisfactory position than the , board haS fehresehted. We have already pointed out that on an approximate computation, tHe inerease in the unemployment revenue, the iricrease in the number of registrations, and the decrease in the rate of payment to the men, do not bring thfe figures into line. Mr. Chapman's reading of the figures adds strength to this impfessioh and it reiiiaihs for the board tn w