H.—35.

Conclusion.—The members of the Unemployment Board submit their report on the eve of the Board's reconstitution, some eight months after its appointment—months which have been full of difficult and strenuous work. The devising of new means by which the rapidly increasing thousands of unemployed workers have been afforded relief has entailed anxious and careful thought. The co-opting and co-ordinating of the invaluable, assistance of several Government Departments and of hundreds of local bodies and voluntary local committees has called for initiative, persistence, and tact. Nowhere in the world has unemployment relief by means of work been accomplished on the same scale or with the same rapidity. New- ground had at every step to be broken, new machinery devised. In the main the Board's methods will remain as a foundation on which its successors may safely build. Up to the present the imperative need for coping with the immediate situation has been paramount ; but the Board has never lost sight of the fact that it is eminently desirable that the work of the unemployed should, as far as possible, be made the means of increasing production. The totally inadequate funds at the disposal of this Board have made it impossible to put into operation the larger schemes that were contemplated by the Unemployment Committee in its report, but the Board has taken considerable steps to enable this to be done as soon as funds become available, and leaves on record a number of recommendations for the future guidance of the incoming Board. S. G. Smith, Chairman. H. Bukdekin, Deputy Chairman. G-. Finn, ") F. L. Hutchinson, P. J. Small, ■„ , ■ W. E. Lbadley, of Board. 0. Mcßrine, J Wμ. Thos. Young, J Malcolm Feaseb, Commissioner of Unemployment. Wellington, 31st July, 1931.

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