The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, JULY 15, 1909. THE UNEMPLOYED QUESTION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2554, 15 July 1909, Page 4

The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, JULY 15, 1909. THE UNEMPLOYED QUESTION.

Last -week a deputation waited non the Hon. Mr Miliar to place before him the urgent necessity for dealing with the unemployed problem. Amongst tho:;o who attended upon the Minister for Labor was Mr. Edward Newman, M.P. for Manawatu, and this gentleman showed a grasp of' the position that is not often evidenced by those who have been given control of public afFairs. On the occasion referred to and also in an interview subsequently published in a Wellington journal, Mr Newman touched upon several important phases which cannot be too strongly enforced at the present time. Naturally the main feature in his suggested solution of the unemployed question has to do with the settlement of more people upon the land for, as we have pointed out in season and out of season, the prosperity of New Zealand is inevitably dependent upon its lands being utilised to the full extent of their productiveness. Mr Newman would like to see the same facilities given to the present unemployed to got on the land as arc being offered to retrenched Civil Servants. This idea seems reasonable enough, hut the detail's would need to be worked out with the utmost care. It would, for instance, be of little use taking a man from the ranks of the unemployed and placing him on a block of bush-covered land, even though lie had it rent free. If he were competent to do a fair day’s work at bush falling lus time might be profitably spent; but he would have to bo paid either by a private employer or by the State, otherwise the worker and those dependent upon him would starve long before the!- efforts would provide them with the means of obtaining food and clothing. Of course the State might advance such a man enough to maintain existence for himself and his family, say, for six months, upon the security of the improvement lie was making in the property, but to do this in any substantial- number of cases, would involve a heavy outlay, and would, moreover, be an exceedingly risky business. The only sound method of utilising the labor available in the country on rural lands is by making allotments easily $ available for every person who has a knowledge of the requirements and some little amount, of capital to make a start. A few thousand settlors of the right stamp—and there are any amount in the country—would easily absorb all the unemployed at present in the Dominion who are capable of doing any class of farm work. There I* another way by which Mr Newman's ideas might ho giten effect to, and that is by the establishment of a State farm, where work would he found for all who needed it. This, oi course, would be quite in accordance with the views oi Socialists, who would once more applaud legislation which seemed to bring their beloved Utopia a stage nearer. We could afford to give them this satisfaction if the unemployed difficulty could he wholly or partially solved in this way, but that it could is by no means certain. A State farm seems a very attractive proposition, and as a temporary expedient has a good deal to recommend it. In the first place farm work is not of the kind that appeals to the professional loafer, who much prefers a job in town which he can leave the moment it grows distasteful to him. Besides lie is. while in town, always handy to the public house bar, and after fortifying himself with beer, can make one of the mob that gathers round the lamp-post orator and cheers him in bis fierce denunciation of “the wealthy classes.” Therefore the State farm would, in all probability, have the effect ot choking off many of the. undesirables, and those who sought employment on it would in most case.-, be men sincerely desirous of working for a living. [Moreover, the work aceomp’ishod on the farm would be directly productive, and under favorable circumstances the workers would not only produce sufficient for their own sustenance of the eh-of food necessities, but also a surplus that would easily account for the •‘living wage’’ which unions nowadays demand. Kor many reasons, therefore, the estate farm idea as a means of providing temporary relief for unemployed, is less objectionable tban many other Socialistic theories, but wc arc hound to -point

out that past experience of >tnte management docs not inspire us with confidence. In the first place, it would be necessary that the manager of such a farm should be a man of exceptional ability, not only in regard to agricul-

tural and past-oral knowledge, but also in the handling of men. For State laborers under such circumstances are very prone to consider their relationships to their employer in quite a different light to those of private employment. The possibility of dismissal for carelessness or a slackness of energy would not seem nearly so realistic to a man working on a State farm as it does where a person is working for a private employer, and there is always a danger of the '‘right- to work ’ theory developing into one of the “right to loaf.” The manager of the State farm would indeed be handicapped by having to accept the lemt efficient of the Dominion laborers —for obviously it is this class which make up the unemployed — and by the difficulty of enforcing a penalty if they did not put forth the best that was in them. To dismiss a man would be supply to place him again in the unemployed ranks, and if it happened in many cases the whole experiment would be proved a failure. Obviously the path of the State farm manager would be beset with difficulties, and he would be lucky indeed if he produced the results that are usually predicted by our socialist friends. The only real solution of the land settlement question is for our legis’ators to make it easy for legitimate farmers to become producers and employers of labor in the ordinary methods of private employment. How far we have wandered from this ideal is apparent whenever the- holding of a land ballot exemplifies the intensity of ’and hunger in a country that can easily accommodate ton times its present popul .t-ion. Another aspect of the unemployed question dealt with hv Mr. Newman is that referring to Nativo lands, and his remarks on this topic are worthy of consideration. They are particularly gratifying to us as indicating the increased attention which -is now being given in different parts of the Dominion to the scandalous waste* of national resources which is being incurred through the failure of successive Governments to deal with the issue in a practical manner. Wo hope, with Mr. Newman, that the present Parliament will take up this question in earnest, with a determination to settle it in a‘ manner that will be fair and just both to Maori and pakeha.