Evening Post. FBIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1937.

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 30, 5 February 1937, Page 8

Evening Post. FBIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1937.

IS THE NEW PLAN BETTER ?

Pertinent questions for the Minister of Labour to answer are raised in the statement issued by the Associated Chambers of Commerce regarding unemployment costs. The figures quoted by the Associated Chambers strongly suggest that the change from board to Ministerial control has not effected a reduction in administration expenses. If the figures are incorrectly stated the public are entitled to know where [the error lies and what are the actual costs. Under the Unemployment Board ' administration costs were kept down; but the Minister of Labour promised that the work would be done even more economically under his plan. While disapproving the: abolition of the board, which had done useful work in both investigation and administration, we believed that there were arguments in favour of amalgamating the Labour and Unemployment Departments and unifying their work. There was a strong case also, as we had ourselves suggested long before, for placing the collection of unemployment taxation under the control of the Tax Department which had experience in dealing with assessment problems. It was reasonable to expect that these administrative charges would result in economy as well as added efficiency; and if this has not been so inquiry and explanation are called for.

Information should be given also respecting other arid even more important questions raised by the Chambers of Commerce.

The Unemployment Fund, the Associated Chambers state, should now be considerably relieved, since Parliament, in accordance with the forecast by the Minister, introduced invalid pensions (chargeable on the Consolidated Fund) for persons permanently incapacitated for employment, while the Public Works Department has now absorbed 18,878 men as compared with 11,715 in February of last year.

We do not suggest that the full amount of relief thus given should show in -the accounts at once. Not all the invalid pensioners were formerly a charge on the Unemployment Fund, and the pensions' have become payable only within th§ last month or so. But there should be substantial relief by now through the expansion of public works if public works are really the solution (as the Labour Party has claimed) for unemployment. A statement of the expenditure from the fund and where it goes should now be an illuminating com--mentary on this part of the Government policy. There are other reasons for public enlightenment on the position of the Unemployment Fund. When the Labour Government took office the -fund was strong. We admit that there was scope for additional expenditure on relief for some of the deserving recipients. This was given, but we do not know at what cost or with what result. Unemployment taxation is expected to yield more this year because of the higher wages on which it is paid and the greater number of workers. But there has been no suggestion of a possible reduction in the tax. In fact, as the Chambers of Commerce point out, more is demanded from the taxpayers by withdrawal of the former income-tax exemption of wages-tax payments. This unjust double taxation does not swell the Unemployment Fund, but it is an irritating and unfair exaction which disposes the taxpayers to ask more insistently what happens to the money. Jf Labour had a cut-and-dried solution for unemployment how is it that there has yet been no relief from the charges imposed for the benefit of the unemployed? Is there any substance in the reports that at least some of the money paid out, instead of curing unemployment, is making it harder to cure, that some of the recipients of relief are not anxious to have their names removed from the registers? Farmers have complained of the difficulty of obtaining labour, housewives say that there is a shortage of domestic help. The Minister of Public Works has offered to release men from Government works to assist on the farms. [Yet the registers of unemployment jstill hold thousands of names ;md

help is being given to men and women. If the invalid pension scheme has removed from the registers those who are physically unfit for work, how is the anomaly of unemployment and a demand for certain classes of labour to be explained? Is it wholly lack of training or partly lack of capacity? It has been charged that the complaint of lack of farm labour is made for political reasons, but everything cannot be explained by this answer. There is certainly a case for full investigation and explanation to assure the public that the maintenance of unemployed is not to become a permanent charge with a permanent and heavy tax.