A PROMISING COURSE.

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20270, 12 August 1937, Page 4

A PROMISING COURSE.

The principle underlying the plan outlined by the Prime Minister for reducing unemployment will be endorsed by many people. It is intended to use unemployed labour to extend afforestation and to bring back into cultivation a large area of land that has reverted to the Crown. Anticipating criticism that this would aggravate the shortage of farm labour Mr Savage has explained that it is intended to use the blocks as reserves for the employment of men during the off-season. “ Arrangements will be made,’ ’he said, “ whereby men from State forest plantations and, in a lesser degree, from land development blocks, will be made available for seasonal farm work.” In a way these blocks will be made the base camps from which men will be drawn as circumstances require. The Government realises that this will necessitate a good deal of organisation and co-opeivition, but they should be forthcoming. When men are needed for seasonal occupations the State activities will be reduced, and when the labour is again idle the men will be re-employed either in afforestation work, or in preparing land for settlement.

The principle is a good one, and will do something to bring the policy into line with the methods favoured by the International Labour Office and many leading economists. The Labour Office adopted resolutions at the recent conference urging that public works should be organised in advance and then reserved for periods of economic depression and acute unemployment. British economists, including some whose views should carry weight with the Government, have urged that when trade is improving, and there is a demand for labour, the State should limit its own operations as much as possible, so that, when conditions are not so favourable it can then use this reserve to provide employment and stimulate trade. They would use public works as a reserve capable of absorbing labour when the need was great. To some extent the plan outlined by Mr Savage will do this, but everything will depend on the degree of control exercised. Many men may prefer the camps to private employment, and by their own acts seek for dismissal so as to qualify for re-admission to a camp. It has been reported that men who were milking on shares adopted this course towards the end of the past season so as to obtain employment in a Government Department or on a public works job.

The idea is a good one provided there is the discipline to make it work smoothly. A primary producing country like this naturally has many seasonal operations, and if, as the demands for labour in these industries slacken, the employees can be absorbed in afforestation work or land improvement then one problem at least will have been reduced. It would be much better to have a scheme along these lines than to allow the young men, when the season’s work had finished, to resort to State sustenance. A great deal, if not indeed the whole success of the scheme, will depend upon the control. Given the right men, not at all inclined to let anyone take advantage of the plan, then there would be no need for establishing special camps, as was done last year. The State camps would be the base. Both the activities mentioned by the Prime Minister would create assets with a potential value, and although they may be costly, judged on the basis of an ordinary investment, they would at least enable the men to earn their keep instead of being given assistance, and allow them to feel that they were doing something of national value. And it must bo admitted that much of the work provided in tlie past did not do that.