Is There a Cure For Unemployment ?

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 606, 7 March 1929, Page 8

Is There a Cure For Unemployment ?

A PRESS cable message from London to-day reports that a deputation from the Miners’ Federation to the Prime Minister and other members of the Government withdrew most dissatisfied with the results of three hours’ discussion. Another message from the same source reports that leave was sought in the House of Commons to introduce a Bill to enable British migrants to receive unemployment pay if necessary for two years after their migration to the Dominions. The Bill was introduced and formally read a first time. These reports together reveal the fact that it is not easy to cure sick industries afflicted with the malignant disease of chronic depression.

Indeed, everywhere the evil of unemployment exists, and its incidence to-day is widespread; it has become a common philosophy to assert that there is no one remedy for unemployment. This attitude of despair has been adopted by many politicians who, when they do not fold their hands and allow things to grow worse, rarely do anything better than experiment with a large number of expensive palliatives. It may he observed with more than casual interest that one of the most conservative journals in England—“ The Spectator”—has lost some of its traditional patience with industrial evils, and testily has declared that to say there is no remedy at all for unemployment is a fallacy which is too often suggested by those of little faith. “There must be a remedy for unemployment. It is ridiculous to suppose that we must allow families which make up well-nigh a tenth of Britain’s population to pass joyless and haphazard lives in a week-to-week dependence on the State.” Quite so, but who is going to burst the fallacy and make an end to an industrial blight ? It is futile to wait on the disappearance of unemployment by the advent of a trade revival. The revival of trade is hindered by the dragging weight of unemployment. And it would be worse than futile to transfer demoralised recipients of doles and unemployment aids to the Dominions and there continue to add to their demoralisation by a continuance of such payment. In these circumstances there would be less incentive to seek and find work in the Dominions than there is in Great Britain. Frost seldom pinches in this country or in Australia, and blizzard-driven snow would be a phenomenon. Even now in Auckland idle men have learnt that they can live without working so long as someone provides food and shelter for them. There is no end of developmental and reconstructive work to he done in Great Britain as in all the Dominions, and great statesmen would find a way to begin work as a cure for unemployment. No one grudged the colossal expenditure and sacrifice on the world war, when every national interest was menaced. "Whyshould nations, in peace, hesitate to find money; for a resolute and remedial war on unemployment %