UNEMPLOYMENT.

Progress, Volume XVII, Issue 2, 1 October 1921, Page 43

UNEMPLOYMENT.

SAWMILLS CLOSING DOWN. LABOUR MEMBER'S ADVICE. HOBART, Thursday. A deputation of Labour members of Parliament waited on £he Minister for Works, Mr. J. B. Hayes, recently with reference to the unemployment problem, which various speakers showed was most acute. It was stated that 800 timber workers had been discharged owing to big importations of timber, and that private employers all over the State were dismissing men wholesale.

Mr. Ogden, one of the Labour members, said that the worst had not been reached, and suggested that demands for higher wages should be held in abeyance when they caused unemployment. All the timber mills at Geeveston were being closed down, and yet timber workers were asking £l2 weekly. Such demands might be the cause of the mills shutting down, and if such demands were frightening private industry the unions ought to make sacrifices in order to keep the industries going.

The Minister, in reply, said he had foreseen the difficulty, and was providing Government work wherever possible. Arbitration Court awards had

been made without any regard to whether the industry could pay the increased wages. One Judge had said that if an industry could not pay it must cease, but that was a silly statement. It was an mdustry, not the employer, which paid wages, and each industry must beat competition, and workers must make sacrifices to do that.

BATEMAN's Bay, Thursday.

Owing to the decreased demand for timber, almost all the sawmills in the district have closed down indefinitely. All hands employed in the mills, and in the hewing and hauling of timber in the forests, have been paid off. Over 500 men are directly affected, while in addition a large number of storekeepers and others, who are dependent upon the prosperity of the sawmills for their livelihood, are faced with a serious outlook. Out of a total number of 16 mills, only three are still working, and it is expected that these will also close down soon.

PLEA FOR COMMON-SENSE. Mr. A. D. Kay, addressing a large meeting in Martin Place, said that unemployment was largely caused by the policy of strikes, direct action, and go slow, which had been advocated for some years by those who had claimed to be leaders of the working class. The workers had been told that by doing as little as possible, and demanding reward beyond merit and reason, they would realise an industrial Utopia, and emancipate themselves from wage slavery. Government doles only aggravated the posi'tion and prolonged the agony. The only remedy was the re-casting of industry on common-sense lines.—9/9/21.