BRITISH UNEMPLOYED

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20733, 17 February 1939, Page 7

BRITISH UNEMPLOYED

GOVERNMENT CRITICIBED LABOUR DEPLORES SITUATION comclal Wireless) (Received Feb. 17, 11 a.m.) RUGBY, Feb. 16 A debate on unemployment was raised in the House of Commons on a Labour resolution moved by Mr A. Greenwood which regretted the continued failure of the Government either to produce definite plans for the provision of work and wages under the present system or 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 were in a depressed condition and contrasted this fact with the assertion in a memorandum of the Royal Economic Society that the increase in physical output per operative in the last five years amounted to 27 per cent and in the case of the engineering industry to 57 per cent. He urged the need for great public schemes of land drainage development, 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 although there was no difference in the country about the gravity of some aspects of the problem it could not be stated in the terms Mr Greenwood used.