UNEMPLOYMENT REMEDY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 903, 21 February 1930, Page 7

UNEMPLOYMENT REMEDY

LABOUR PARTY REVEALS ITS METHOD PROBLEM STILL ACUTE Press Association WELLINGTON, Thursday. The prevailing unemployment represents not only a serious wastage of community resources, but is responsible for hardship and privation in many homes throughout the Dominion, says the Labour Party's statement of policy issued today. In spite of the Government’s promise at the end of last session of Parliament to remove unemployment, it still remains in an acute form. Economic developments are such as to foreshadow even worse conditions during the coming winter. The need for a policy that will attack the problem fundamentally is as urgent today as when the United Government came into office. The haphazard methods pursjied by the Government have merely afforded a fleeting relief to a limited number of unemployed. The public should be fully informed of the prevalence of unemployment by the publication throughout ~ the Dominion every week of a statement giving the number of unemployed who have registered at the office of the Labour Department. The policy of the Labour Party to meet the present situation embodies the following proposals: The employment of men under expert supervision for the purpose of preparing available Crown lands for settlement and cultivation, men working on the preparation of land to receive special consideration in (he taking up of such lands ■when ready for settlement. A vigorous road construction policj', special attention to be given to the clearing and metalling of roads in back-coun-try areas. The employment of additional men on railway works. More liberal subsidies to local bodies in order to encourage -and expedite the carrying out of essential works. The abolition of relief rates and conditions of public works. ASSISTING INDUSTRIES The Labour Party’s policy is to stimulate and assist existing secondary industries and to encourage the establishment of new industries which can be profitably developed in the interests of the Dominion. Wherever possible the Government departments, local authorities and the general public should give preference first to New Zealand products and manufactures, and where these are not available to goods and commodities produced within the British Commonwealth. The Labour Party will also consider the raising of the school age, the lowering of the age limit for pensions, the shortening of the hours of labour and the minimising of overtime. The Labour Party will set up an employment board to organise employment so as to minimise the hardship, dislocation and uncertainty occasioned by seasonal occupations and the rapid displacement of workers by laboursaving machinery, and will immediately create an insurance fund to provide for the maintenance of avorkers for whom employment is not immediately available.