FINDING WORK.

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 690, 16 November 1933, Page 4

FINDING WORK.

The fact that the manufacturers of New Zealand have met in conference to consider ways and means of restoring wage-earners to profitable employment is one of the most hopeful signs which have appeared upon the financial horizon for a long time. The fact that these leaders of our secon- ( dary industries have recognised I the necessity for some effort to j restore purchasing power is most significant, because it discloses a realisation of the lack of wisdom which has characterised our methods of dealing with unemployment in the past. It of course remains to be seen what steps the manufacturers propose should be taken to restore industrial activity, but it is good to see that they have awakened to the uneconomical condition of the present times. If an increased purchasing power, and re-em-ployment, can be secured by reducing hours, raising wages, and getting busy, well and good, but a reduction of taxation is the shortest approach to an increase in purchasing power, and herein lies the reverse side of the unemployment taxation picture painted in the Budget. It may be true that "the per capita contribution of New Zealand taxpayers towards the relief of their unemployed fellow citizens is higher than in most other countries;" it may be true that it is better that the taxpayer should pay for this relief at once, out of pocket, rather than load it on to posterity by borrowing; but what the taxpayer pays out of pocket, towards a relief system | which is only partly constructive, j cannot be paid by him towards jbuying goods and services that will reabsorb the unemployed in private industry. Capital, hitherto inclined to sulk, is recovering from its shyness, and the day I is coming when it will need the j co-operation of popular purchas- ■ ing power in putting workers b'ack where they should be — in j private employment.