THE UNEMPLOYED COMMISSION.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1313, 10 March 1885, Page 2

THE UNEMPLOYED COMMISSION.

The Unemployed Commission’s report has just been published. They took the evidence of 150 persons, and they agreed that for the last two .years there was a great falling off in employment and a great deal of distress and poverty prevailed. The wages paid, they assert, are sufficiently high to enable ordinarily providential people to live comfortably. This hundreds cannot do, for the following reasons ;—lst. The towns are overbuilt, and consequently there is now a paralysis in the building trade; 2nd. There is a serious diminution of expenditure on all public works. Another important cause they mention of the diminution of .employment, especially among farm laborers, has been the curtailment of the spending powers of the farmers consequent on bad seasons and the high rate of railway freight during the past year, The dearness of money also causes a diminution of money and labor, and considerably hampers commerce, local industries and agriculture. Referring to the expenditure on charitable aid, etc,, in the Canterbury district, it is mentioned that for the year ended 30tb June, 1884, it exceeded that of the previous year by £962, They suggest the early development of a scheme for settling laborers on land, or in other words some further and systematic adoption of the principle of village settlement. By this means laborers could be spread over the colony on spots near to where they would be most lively to find work. Full details of how those settlements might be worked are given in the report. They favour the construction of the West Coast Railway as it would afford employment for men. They also suggest men being allowed to take up settlements along the proposed line, as it would in a few years be the means of adding traffic to the line; and the Government should offer facilities of cheap transfers to enable the southern unemployed to reach the works on the North Island railway. Pending the commencement of those two large works, tho Commission think that work might be found for men in ref hinting forests to replace those burnt or cut down. Local industries should be fostered. Most of the material imported could be made as cheap in the colony and give employment to a largo number of skilled men. TJrey think that any steps which would tend to relieve fanners and others of the heavy interest on capital must be of immense importance to the laborers. The Chairman (Mr J. D. McPherson) has embodied his views in a' separate report, and it differs in some respects from the above.