PRODUCTION

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 466, 25 February 1933, Page 5

PRODUCTION

(Special to "Post.")

UNEMPLOY^H^^HB board confinesji^^^^^^l to prodljcl^^^h^h channeli^^^H^H THE PSYCHOLOG-IUA^PP^H

Wellington, Fl'i^^H Dealing with the policy of reqm^| ing reproductive worlc to be done in return for relief the annual report of the Unemployment Board says it is "based on two considerations, both of which, in the view of the board, are of prime importance. Firstly, there is the psyehological effect on the worker, previously referred to — the men- ' tal effect^on the individual of performing, for lengthy periods- manual work which it is apparent to him is of a- useless nature, is both positive. and harmful. Seoondly, the special taxation which is the source of the board's funds is derived immediately from the earnings of citizens, hut depends ultimately for its continued yield upon the productive assets of j the Dominion. Therefore, it has been ' deemed wise to direct the expenditure | of relief moneys into channels which j will tend to enlarge those assets. A | related consideration, which has I weighed with the hoard in this connection, is a desire that, when revival of j trade renders relief activ'ities no longer necessary, any continuing evidences of the present depression will present themselves to posterity not as liabilities, but as tangible assets in the shape of improved and extended farm lands, improved access to backblocks districts. additional public public facilities, and other works of definita community or productive value. "No orgaijisation comparable in I nature and magnitude with that which has sprung up as the vehicle of unemployment relief has previously functioned in the Dominion. The board, therefore, has no means of

relating the multifarious administrative problems to past experience. There have heen no precedents to guide the board in the formation of policy, nor the eertifying officers and associated officials in administering it. A national situation, of economic origin, and expressing itself in human distress, arose and intensified with an irresistible rapidity that brooked no delay in the conception'and launching of counteractive measures.

"The problem of deciding the course of action was not alone an abstract one merely of declaring what forms of work should be performed for specified measures of relief, and of ereeting a Dominion-wide organisation to function with machine-like efficiency. Superimposed on the suflicientlj' intricate consideration associated with those phases were the facts that every line of even routine official action impinged finally on the personal live-s of citizens- with a significance magnified by their condition of unaccustomed dependence; and that rules of procedure, however elaborately drawn by the Board and meticulously observed by its officials, failed in their purpose if their ultimate effect in operation were not ameliorative of tlie personal hardship the Board's funds were designed to relieve."