AM UNSOLVED PROBLEM

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 188, 9 August 1924, Page 30

AM UNSOLVED PROBLEM

UNEMPLOYMENT,

INSURANCE NEEDED

(By WORKER.)

Of all iho tangled skein? of our modern industrial life, the twisted coil uf .incmploymcnt is perhaps the liard- ("■-' to tlhia'.rl. for the dUi-asi- is of long Harding :i n<l calls for mua-ures that must lie of necessity dra-tic The

trades unions appear to be powerless in coping with the trouble, in fact beyond keeping a register of unemployed, members they wake little or no attempt to with t!iv i|iiestion, .-o that -we must look farther ulield. I-'or years past Labour leaders have been striving for a way out of the impasse, but s-o far they ha.\e not heeu more fortunate than their Liberal and Conservative friends in arriving at. a solution.

The dole, of which mncli \va? expected, has proved but a paJliative at best, if nut a distinct economic mistake, for if the millions expended had been put into reproductive works the manhood of fie mition would have been really helped, whereas they arc in dan«vr (if becoming tpoon-fed, and losing that sturdy independence that was our fathers' creed and should be our own.

There arc those wlio »o so fur as to say iiiiiL there is no real solution of the uillinilty : lint that unemployment must lin accepted a= n oontlition of modern roeioty, :l funftuntly recurring menace as iiicvitalili' as war. or pestilence, or famine While not altogether agreeing v. ilh tIiPFC. one is lain to admit the fact that iinc-mployuii'iif i= always \iresent, to ,i greater or less flojjree. in nil industrial communities, and fortunate indeed is the nrtisan who has never known (.he dead, ilull weariness of tlie fruitless search for work, the slow dwindling of the little (•tore ho has managed to put by for a rainy day. the hope deferred that inaketh the heart =iek. and all the dreary monotony that is summed up in being out. of work.

The- unemployed may be. divided approximately into three groups :— First there is the worker who, through no fault of his own. finds himself thrown by force of circumstances out of work, but is honestly desirous of finding a job ; secondly we have the man who does not intend to work until he ha-s exhausted all the known avenues of living without either toiling or spinning (albeit one of tlie most difficult things on earth is to got a living honestly without work) ; thirdly we have the unemployable, the man who can do anything, but nothing well, for alas he find 3 that all labour ia skilled to unaccustomed hands. These last present, perhaps the greatest problem of all.

So many youths follow blind alley occupations for a while, and eventually lind themselves on the labour market as unskilled workers, thus swelling the ranks of those who are difficult to place. It sometimes seems strange that in a country like New Zealand, where there is enough and to spare, and where there is so much work to do, nay, clamouring to be done, that there should be any unemployment problem : but the evil exists licre, and it is high time that there was some system of insurance of employable labour, for an unemployed man is an economic loss. He is deprived of the means of living, and the State loses his product, therefore it becomes the duty of the State to see to it that this man. willincr in work. T>"t. unable to find employment, is profitably employed.

Xcw Zealand has state, firo. life, and accident insxirance ; but. lags sadly behind other lands in the matter of insurance against unemployment, which is as a Labour man once tersely put it, as much an accident to the worker who falls out of his industry as though lie had fallen from a scaffold. We give the worthless man in charge as a vagrant, or hand him the shilling or half crown we can spare, according to our temperament ; we punish the thief who steals to satisfy his hunger, but no law appears on our Statute book dealing with the deep seated cause of which this is only one of the effects. We, too, give little or no thought to our own responsibility in the matter, for it is the responsibility of every individual to see that that which i 3 wrong be put right. Every soul that comes into the world has the right to live, and to live by the work of his hands was the original intention ; but we have wandered far away from the old plan and we have to remould our lives to suit the altered conditions, and how to do co for the best is one of the most pressing of the problems that confront Us. If the dole is admitted to be a mistake, surely charity is another 'broken reed ; for the decent poor are loth to parade their poverty and do not come out into the open, save under stress of dire necessity ; they also do not care for the cold, searching, crossexamination that is too often the accompaniment of charitable aid ; so that the loaves and fishes go to the unworthy, while the deserving cases go unnoUced. Some system could surely be formulated whereby the employer and the workers could subscribe to a fund, to be subsidised by the State, and then when a man was out of work, a w-eekly sum would be available to tide him over the time of stress, not as a dole, nor as the charity of a bone thrown to a do", but his by right.

This would he a step along the right road, and would go far toward eliminating the fear of unemployment which at present casts its dark ehadow across every wage-earner's path.