The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND THURSDAY, JUNE 5, 1930 UNEMPLOYMENT TESTS POLITICIANS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 990, 5 June 1930, Page 10

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND THURSDAY, JUNE 5, 1930 UNEMPLOYMENT TESTS POLITICIANS

J TNEMPLOYMEXT in many countries is exposing the weakV nesses and limitations of political administrators. The latest example of this inevitable revelation is the appointment of the Rt. Hon. J. H. Thomas as Secretary of State for the Dominions. His Government has had to find a new Ministerial position for him in order to save itself from the increasing peril of party disunity. It has done so in a kindly way. There is, however, a touch of ircaiy in the gentle process of giving an “Irishman’s rise” to a genial, well-intentioned man who always has stopped a bit short of greatness in administrative achievement. His new appointment means that through inability to find work for the British unemployed he has got a better or at least an easier job for himself at the same salary, £5,000 a year. As Minister in Charge of Unemployment, Mr. Thomas found a task far beyond his own resources—a discovery that abler administrators had made long ago and again will make, for the simple reason that unemployment is not an evil spirit that can be exorcised by the waving of a magical wand. This w r as proved yesterday at Wellington in the embarrassment of the Hon. E. A. Ransom, -who had to confess to a deputation of unemployed carpenters that the Government alone could not solve the problem. It was the right kind of confession to make and a great deal better than silly assertion about banishing unemployment within five weeks. In Great Britain thousands of politicians have not been able to get rid of unemployment within five centuries. This may be cold comfort for the five thousand unemployed New .Zealanders whose registered applications for work in the first month of winter will cause the reconstituted Government to wish that it had not indulged in vain boasting last year. Nothing need be said about the immense scope for an exercise of the new courage and candour that now animates the disillusioned and depressed Ministry. But what about Mr. Thomas ? For the moment, in a digression, he has been left on the doorsteps of the Dominions, awaiting a welcome. We are sorry, for everybody likes the man. He is even more welcome than his predecessor, Lord Passfield, whose coldness has made him almost a forgotten figurehead as far as the Dominions have known about his work, and no less to be welcomed than Mr. Amery who achieved the feat of travelling around the whole Empire without expressing a new idea or anything better than a frayed platitude. Mr. Thomas has a working man’s knowledge of the Dominions and their industrial and commercial needs, and can be depended upon to do his best, which will be nothing remarkable, to meet them and promote their trade interests. In one visit to Canada alone he secured more business contracts for his country than most commercial travellers or “gogetters” could have obtained in the same time. And it may be said fairly that Mr. Thomas, as Secretary of State for the Dominions, will find his new position rather ironical, too. Had the Dominions been able to do as much as he did as Minister in Charge of Unemployment to provide work for a large number of the British unemployed, it would not have been necessary for his harassed Government to split a dual position into two parts—Colonial Secretary and Dominions Secretary—and give him the greater part. The Dominions, in a manner that has been described frankly in a London newspaper as “cruel and crude sel-fishness”-—dammed the flowing stream of British migration to their relatively empty lands, or at least reduced it to a mere trickle. It is to be hoped that Mr. Thomas, a faithful failure as Lord Privy Seal, will become a success as the administrative liaison officer between Great Britain and the Dominions. Already lie has had experience of the duties and responsibilities involved in the post, and easily should add to his former reputation for earnestness and level-headed moderation. It is well, of course, that the State secretarial administration of the Dominions and Colonies is divided at last under two separate heads, but there is no necessity for exaggerating the importance of the Dominions. The greatest mass of the Empire’s population is outside the five Dominions. It is distributed over sixty different units of the Empire. Each unit must be considered with equal sympathy and encouragement. Moreover, the Dominions, now enjoying complete self-government, and acclaiming their equality of status with the Motherland, are more able than the Colonies and dependencies to look after themselves. For that reason Mr. Thomas has got a better billet than the task of wrestling with the giant of unemployment.

HELP FROM HOUSEWIVES

ON the loyal discrimination of housewives depends the success of New Zealand industries and the future of an army of New Zealand workers. This is no sweeping, exaggerated statement, calculated to rouse false sympathies in impressionable circles. It is a statement of plain fact, proved every day in every city, town and village from the North Cape to the Bluff. By far the greater proportion of the money that circulates through retail channels in the Dominion is spent by women. As shop customers they are in overwhelming majority, and few. if any establishments find it commercially possible to refrain from catering to their* needs and demands. If they declare and maintain a firm, unswerving preference for New Zealand-made goods, the economic menace of excessive importation and crippled home manufactures will disappear as snow in sunshine. The help that housewives can give tlieir own countrymen and women was stressed last evening when the members of the Lyceum Club, headed by Mrs. W. H. Parltes, discussed and agreed upon the necessity for active support of New Zealand’s industries. As Miss Ellen Melville pointed out in the course of a vigorous address, the creation .of a regular rather than an intermittent demand for this country’s products is the first and most desirable move. This will enable manufacturers to patit their houses in order. —to budget for a sound, permanent market, and to pave the way for greater improvements in quality and further reductions in price. “The intelligent housewife is more valuable than any tariff.” said Miss Melville. “If women spend intelligently, there will be no need of unemployment loans and subsidies.” Repeatedly The Sun has advocated the principle that lies so obviously behind this statement. The former observation is also true, though it must be remembered that, while foreign competition remains as it is, and until a Dominion-wide preference for our own goods is firmly established, protective tariffs are not merely valuable. They are essential. The pledge read by Miss Melville to her audience last evening demands the attention and support of housewives throughout the country. Every day foreign goods, nationally advertised in a flood of imported periodicals, are supplanting New Zealand food products of high quality and similar price. With clothing, and the hundred-and-one household requirements that can be supplied in New Zealand, the position is the same. The remedy lies largely in the hands of women and, in applying it, they will reap a reflected benefit.