HC Deb 26 May 1937 vol 324 cc263-4
21. Mr. Parker

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why it is that, whereas he has recently given his approval to a recommendation that a sum of $2,000,000 should be given from the public funds of the Straits Settlements to the Singapore Silver Jubilee Fund for the unemployed, no provision is made for the relief of the unemployed in the Federated Malay States, in view of the large surplus to the credit of the latter; and whether it is intended to introduce permanent unemployment insurance schemes in either of these territories?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore

Unemployment in the Colony of the Straits Settlements, which includes the large cities of Singapore and Penang, is a more real problem than in the Federated Malay States. A local committee has just completed an inquiry into the incidence and nature of unemployment in the State of Selangor, which contains the capital town of the Federated Malay States, and has found it to be on a very small scale indeed, and not in need of the remedy of a grant from public funds as in the Straits Settlements. As regards an unemployment insurance scheme, it is considered that having regard to the frequently shifting and immigrant nature of the greater part of the wage-earning population, this would not be a practicable system for the colony or the Federated Malay States.

Mr. Parker

In view of the fact that the boundaries of the Straits Settlements and of the Federated Malay States run very closely together, would it not be simpler to deal with the problem in the same way throughout the whole of those territories?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore

No; as I explained in my answer, the nature of the employment and the character of the settlement in the Straits Settlements and the Federated Malay States are quite different. The population of the city of Singapore is half-a-million, but there is no big town in the Federated Malay States, and the problem of industrial employment arises particularly in towns. With so much of the labour being migatory, from and to India and from and to China, a permanent system of unemployment insurance is impracticable.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson

Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that there is not much unemployment among the estate labour?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore

I gather that there is practically no unemployment in the agricultural areas or the town mining areas. Such unemployment as exists is largely in the docks and in the two big cities.