1922.] 



Land Drainage and Unemployment. 



923 



The conditions upon which money is advanced by the 

 Ministry under this scheme may be repeated here. They are 

 as follows : — 



(a) All work must be done as far as possible by hand labour ; 



(b) 75 per cent. o£ the labourers must be ex-service men, if available ; 



(c) Of the remaining 25 per cent., the majority must be married civilians, 

 if available ; 



(d) Wages payable for ordinary labour will be the agricultural rates 

 cun-ent in the district. The only men who may be paid in excess of the 

 agricultural rates are gangers, foremen and skilled men such as 

 carpenters and smiths ; 



(e) The works will be inspected by the Ministry from time to time and 

 progress reports will be called for as and when required. 



The main object to be achieved is to get unemployed rapidly 

 on to suitable work, and every possible effort is being made to 

 prevent any formalities standing in the way of work being 

 started promptly. 



The possibility of undertaking works of land drainage, or 

 of reclamation, for the relief of unemployment, or of assisting 

 such works financially, has been discussed for many months, 

 and many prominent agriculturists and others have urged that 

 such a policy should be adopted. 



The suggestion that works of reclamation, particularly on the 

 foreshore of the Wash, should be undertaken by Government 

 has also been very freely advocated, and is undoubtedly attrac- 

 tive at first sight. There are, howwer, in the Ministry's 

 opinion almost insuperable difficulties. Work of this kind 

 would have to be carried out on remote and exposed parts of the 

 coast and would involve housing accommodation for large 

 numbers of men as well as provision for supplies, amusement 

 and policing, in most cases at a considerable distance from 

 rail-head. It will be readily understood that such necessities 

 as these would add enormously to the cost of any work, and 

 also that the first requirement for keeping down the cost would 

 be the employment of the greatest possible number of men at 

 a time on each work. It will also be evident that, owing to 

 the situation of the works, the conditions during winter would 

 be extremely unfavourable and calculated to lead to long periods 

 of almost complete idleness. 



In any case, the construction of embankments by hand 

 labour is an extremely uneconomical method of reclaiming fore- 

 shore land at the present time. Experts have been considering 

 the possibilities of using machinery of various kinds for such 



