BRITISH UNEMPLOYMENT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 41, 18 February 1939, Page 9

BRITISH UNEMPLOYMENT

LABOUR M.P. CRITICAL SOCIALIST PRINCIPLES NEEDED (British Official Wirelew; RUGBY, Feb. 16. A debate on unemployment was raised in the House of Commons on the Labour resolution, moved by Mi. Arthur Greenwood, which regretted the continued failure of the Government either to introduce definite plans for the provision of work and wages under the present system oi to initiate a policy which recognised that the problem could only be solved by the application of Socialist principles. In calling upon the Government to advance proposals to meet the situation he reviewed the position in the shipbuilding, cotton, agriculture, and other industries, which he said were in a depressed condition and he contrasted this fact with the assertion in the memorandum of the Royal Economic Society that the increase In physical output per operative in the last five years amounted to 27 pe: cent, and in the case of the engineering industry to 57 per cent. Mr. Greenwood urged the need oi great public schemes of land drainage, the development of roads and transport, as well as work in connection with the protection of the civil population in time of war.

The Minister of Labour, Mr. Ernest Brown, said that although there was no difference of opinion in the country about the gravity of some of the aspects of the problem it could not be stated in the terms Mr. Greenwood used.