The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1929 PAYING MEN TO WORK

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 779, 27 September 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1929 PAYING MEN TO WORK

IS it political wisdom to introduce a scheme for paying men when they are idle, rather than making an effort to provide more work and pay workers more for first-class industrial efficiency and production? This question, together with several inter-related subjects, was discussed with refreshing candour yesterday by the members of the Auckland Provincial Employers’ Association.

The employers, who discussed the crude Parliamentary proposal to establish a system of unemployment insurance in this country for the charitable purpose of temporarily relieving the unemployed, tersely condemned the projected scheme. As one speaker (Mr. A. G. Lunn) phrased objection, “It is monstrous to think of taxing the industries of this country to allow workers to refrain from work. We should pay men to work, not to idle.” Similar opinions on the same principle of common sense were expressed by Mr. Albert Spencer, president of the association, and by Mr. G. Finn, who added, with justifiable scorn, that personally he did not believe there had yet been a real effort in New Zealand to solve the problem of unemployment. Of course, such plain talk will he denounced with equal vehemence by many persons as harsh and destructive criticism at a time when feeble politicians need propping up with constructive ideas and encouraging sympathy. The lamentable plight of political workers who, much too frequently, are well paid to idle rather than to work, should not be permitted to blindfold keen observers of the nonsense that is paraded these days as progressive polities. It cannot he disproved that the representative Auckland employers are right in their vigorous opposition to any scheme of insured idleness as an extravagant substitute for reasonably well-paid work. Curiously enough, the genuine unemployed themselves do not want to be made the miserable victims of unemploj-ment insurance which does nothing at all, and nowhere has ever done anything, toward solving the problem of enforced idleness. Can any advocate of this particular form of political palliatives for unemployment cite a single instance of its success in providing more work for the unemployed? It might he helpful to the cause of unemployment if hut one example of something better than expensive failure could he cited. For ten years of continuous industrial and economic difficulties Great Britain has tried one of the best unemployment insurance schemes in the world, and all that it has succeeded in doing is the achievement of the record expenditure of £.500,000,000 without solving the problem. Unemployment there is still an industrial blight. Had that colossal sum of money, raised at the expense of employers, workers and taxpayers, been spent on new works, or even on long-range planning of public enterprises involving the employment of labour, and also on the establishment of industrial research organisations, the British nation today would not have been still maintaining in idleness over a million of potential workers who want work, not charity in the disguise of insurance. As for Mr. Finn’s belief that no real effort yet has been made to eliminate unemployment in this country, it is well founded. The Government boasts stridently of having done more in ten months than any of its predecessors ever did in a similar or even a longer period to relieve unemployment. There is little reason in its record for pride and boasting. It has crowded all sorts of public works with unskilled and more or less skilled workers from the mass of unemployed on the one hand, and from groups of discontented workers on the other hand, hut it has not succeeded in abolishing unemployment. The same Administration has inspired many local bodies to spend thousands of pounds on unemployment relief works, hut still the unemployed besiege labour bureaux and pour in from the country and from overseas to enjoy the benefit of high rates of wages for work on the principle of humanitarianism. Has the Government made any attempt to promote the expansion of existing industries or the establishment of new industries in place of costly imports which keep the distant foreigner in employment? It has done nothing of the kind. And now, the Ministry of Talent and Talismans breaks its own promises and increases taxation!

PROGRESS TOUCHES THE A.C. BATH

OF all the baths in the thermal country, that to which there clings the most kindly interest is the A.C. Bath at Tanpo. Before modern improvement thought to pause at that little sequestered valley iu the scrubby hills behind Taupo, the crumbling bath-house had no other amenities than its stalwart builders—the Armed Constabulary which garrisoned that remote hut strategic outpost—had provided for it sixty years ago. Thus they left it, a weatherbeaten shack raised above a pool whose waters had the warm, soft touch of silk. In the rollicking days when the coaches bore their freight over the steep path from Napier, occasional visitors turned from the beaten track and splashed round the timbered sides of the pool. But not until the motoring age brought Taupo a new prominence was the A.C. Bath really discovered to public favour. Even so, it remained untouched by progress. Not until a year or two ago was a serious more made to put the place in order. But even though it fell more steadily into decay, a discerning public would not permit its popularity to languish. Now another inevitable step is mooted—a proposal to erect a hath in Taupo itself. The water will come from the stream that feeds the A.C. Bath, hut the pool will be much more accessible to the hotels and boardinghouses of the township. Such provision is sure to he popular, and accordingly the pool and dressing accommodation should be made correspondingly large. Some may feel a twinge of sentimental regret that the old A.C. Bath should thus he divested of its pre-eminence; but no doubt it will continue to exist, and those with an interest in an historic and charming spot will continue to visit it. The neglect of these resources at Taupo is characteristic of the region. It has been left to hotel-keepers to exploit the warm streams and even the geyser fields. At Wairakei the majestic Karapeti blowhole is on a private preserve. Somehow the visitor to Taupo,is given the impression that we New Zealanders are very unconcerned about what happens to some of the most striking assets with which Nature has provided us. Lower down the Waikato Valley, at Orakei-Korako, is another remarkable thermal centre. Hochstetter, the Austrian geologist who was the first to make a thorough examination of these uncanny manifestations. considered Orakei-Korako the'most remarkable field of all. Vet Orakei-Korako is still little known, rarely visited. Separated from the main road by several miles of execrable track, it apparently awaits the stimulating interest of private enterprise. For successive Governments have shown that these things trouble them little until pressure compels them to make a virtue of neeessit v.