UNEMPLOYMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 June 1921, Page 5

UNEMPLOYMENT.

LABOR MEMBERS’ PROTEST. ACTING-PREMIER’S REPLY. By Telegraph—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. Labor members of Christchurch, Messrs. Howard, McCombs, and Sullivan, have torwarded a telegram of protest to the Acting-Prime Minister, stating that the Government was deliberately creating the unemployment problem for the purpose of forcing down wages, the plan being to dismiss men from public works, curtail expenditure on public buildings, and cancel- authorities in order to prevent local bodies competing for men, teams, plant, and material. In pursuance of this plan they allege men have been dismissed by local bodies from public works, including returned soldiers, who are now being offered employment on relief public works at 6d a day below the normal rates for general laborers. The telegram adds: “This is an organised attack on the workers.” Sir Francis Bell, in the course of a reply, says: “You do not ask for information, but are content to make a series of assertions and to protest on the assumption that the assertions are correct, but the assertions are incorrect as to public finances, while the statement that the Government is deliberately creating the unemployment problem for the purposes of forcing down wages is so manifestly absurd that 1 am forced to the conclusion that you have some political object in promulgating such a charge.”