£472,671 Expended On Unemployed

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 364, 26 May 1928, Page 10

£472,671 Expended On Unemployed

LAST YEAR’S TOTAL PRIME MINISTER’S REVIEW Press Association. WELLINGTON, To-day. "From criticisms levelled at the Government regarding unemployment, the public might be led to believe that the speakers at the recent deputation alone were concerned with the present unemployment situation and that the Government was doing nothing whatever to cope with it,’* said the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates, to-day. “They fail to appreciate what has been done. The following information will reveal what the Government has done to afford relief to those who have been unable to obtain employment elsewhere: ■ (1) During the last financial year approximately 6,200 men were sent to Government relief works throughout the Dominion, and over 3,000 men left these works of their own accord. "(2) The Local Bodies Empowering Act, under which local bodies could raise loans for relief of unemployment, was extended for another year last session, and in addition, legislative authority for the payment o-f subsidies to local bodies for works undertaken for the relief of unemployment was given by Parliament. Total payments were limited by the Imprest Supply Act (No. 1) to £150,000. Subsidies totalling £113,000 were approved during the year, and payments actually made to March 31 last amounted to £ 75,105. "(3) The total expenditure by the Government on relief works last year, including £75.106 paid in subsidies to local bodies, was £472,671. “(4) During the period of seven weeks from April 1 of this year up to May 19, 1.200 men have been sent to Government relief works, which are being undertaken by Public Works end Forestry Departments. Of this number, 400 men left the works of their own accord.

“(5) There are 2,759 men on Government relief werks at the present time, and arrangements are in train for the placing of approximately 1,000

additional men as soon as camps can bo erected and works laid out, probably within a fortnight’s time.

“(6) Approximately 11,000 men are being employed by the Public Works Department to date. In addition to this, we have to remember that the Public Works programme has been pressed on at n high rate of speed, at a pace faster than would have been normally required, and that about 10,000 men are being absorbed, whereas under ordinary circumstances the number employed would be between 6,000 and 8,000.

“With regard to the question of the subsidy to local bodies for unemployment works. Cabinet has decided to re-enact the provisions to sutsidise local-authority unemployment loans, and this fact was definitely announced by my colleague, the Hon. R. A. Wright, when he received a deputation concerning unemployment recently.

“I have been in communication with the Mayor of Wellington regarding the variation of the subsidy paid to local bodies, but no decision has been arrived at yet. In the meantime, however, the same provisions which applied up to March 31 last are being continued, and a public statement to this effect has already been made.

“Also to be taken into account,” added Mr. Coates, “is the; recent decision of the Government to undertake a statistical review in order to ascertain the ages, responsibilities and qualifications of unemployed men, with a view to launching a scheme designed to prevent men getting out of employment, and, where they are unemployed, to absorbing them in our various industries*”