SPECIAL FUNDS EXHAUSTED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 857, 28 December 1929, Page 1

SPECIAL FUNDS EXHAUSTED

Railway Dismissals Explained STATEMENT BY MINISTER Government’s Unemployment Efforts rress Association DUNEDIN, Today. WHEN approached in connection with the recent statements telegraphed from Wellington regarding the dismissal of casual employees from the Railway Department, the Hon. W. B. Taverner, Minister of Railways, stated that the position was that when the Government’s relief scheme was put into operation last October the Railway Department was supplied by the Cabinet Committee with extra funds and asked to place as many additional tradesmen as could be employed on necessary work. Some hundreds of men were accordingly taken on throughout the Dominion and had been retained as long as funds and work permitted.

“Even now,’’ said the Minister, “only about half of the extra men have been discharged, although at one stage It appeared that a number would have to be released about the middle of December. In view of the desirability of keeping as many as possible in work until Christmas time a special meeting of the Cabinet Committee was called on December 19 to consider the position, and the committee was able to arrange for the retention of the men until December 24, but was reluctantly compelled to issue instructions for 237, distributed throughout the service, to be put off when that date arrived as no further money was available from the special fund provided by the Prime Minister in connection with the scheme. “It is well known that, in common with the railway systems throughout the world, our department is passing through a difficult period of its existence, and the task of reorientating its services to meet the changing conditions in transport leaves no margin for loading on to the department’s working expenses account a wages bill for several hundred additional men. “SPECIAL FUNDS SPENT” “The speciak>J:unds made available to the department by the" Cabinet Committee have been used up and the work provided thereby has, no

doubt, enabled a happier Christmas to be spent in many homes. If individual employers would recognise the real distress that unemployment brings to the homes of working people, I do not see liow they could fail to commence 1930 with the resolution to give employment to at least one more man. Such a movement would wipe out unemployment overnight.

“The Government has a duty to the community and has demonstrated in a practical way its recognition of that duty, but the private employer has » less impersonal duty to his fellow men, and the time is ripe for him to follow the lead- of the Government in discharging his responsibility. STATE OR INDIVIDUAL “There can be no doubt,” continued Mr. Taverner, “that there is a growing tendency for all classes to lean upon the Government in these matters, and mistakenly to dismiss them as national problems with which the individual has no concern as the first step toward creating local interest in the problem.” Mr. Taverner urged such bodies as chambers of commerce, manufacturers’ associations, employers* federations and others to take the matter in hand during the New Year. He was confident that with this, together with the assistance of the State, which could always take up the slack, real progress would be made in 1930.