“Taranaki Central Press” TUESDAY, JUNE 15, 1937. THE EMPLOYMENT FUND

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 457, 15 June 1937, Page 4

“Taranaki Central Press” TUESDAY, JUNE 15, 1937. THE EMPLOYMENT FUND

The abstract of the public accounts published in the Gazette last week includes a summary of the receipts and payments of the Employment Promotion Fund, formerly and more accurately called the Unemployment Fund. Like most public accounts, it is on a cash basis and therefore not very useful or informative, particularly as the fund has substantial investments in loans and securities. An account which includes securities held and loan repayments with tax revenue under the general heading of receipts does more to obscure the truth than to reveal it. At some later date, it must be hoped, the Minister for Employment will offer a detailed explanation of unemployment finance. Indeed, the Minister might well offer some explanation pf wbv an Employment Promotion Fund is maintained now that the Unemplovment Board has been abolished and the administration of relief entrusted to the Labour Department. There are at least three good reasons why unemployment finance should become a part of budget finance. The first is that the Employment Promotion Fund’s main source of revenue, the wages tax, can be expected to increase as unemployment decreases. In other words, the less unemployment there is, the more money there will be available to relieve unemployment. The second reason is that the accounts of the fund do not show the cost to the country of rrieasures to relieve unemployment; and if they do not show that, they have no rational justification. Ihe third reason is that separate funds within the public accounts are at best a complicating factor and ought to be abolished wherever possible.