UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 191, 15 August 1933, Page 6

UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF.

A PERMANENT SYSTEM.

Whether it is to be considered a good thing or a bad, we have now established in Australia the responsibility of Governments for looking after those who cannot find employment (writes Hugh Adam in the Melbourne "Herald"). Of course/ there was unemployment in Australia before this depression. .There was much more unemployment than most of us imagined. Generally it looked after itself as best it might. There would be a certain amount of very real and tragic distress. There was much tightening of the .belt and stolid endurance when weeks went by without- a job. The lot of these unemployed would not, as a whole, be s6 bad as it is to-day. In a country in which borrowed money was being spent oh many public developmental works the periods of unemployment for the able-bodied worker would ocdinarily be short. When the depression came, the Government stepped in and took over a new responsibility. It had to do so. The numbers and needs of those whom the depression threw out of work far surpassed the capacity of charity, or of the neighbourly kindness that is such golden brotherhood among our poor. So what was perhaps a bad old method of muddling along with a social problem came to a forced end. From now on it is certain, however much conditions improve, that the man who cannot earn his living Will have to be fitted into some Government plan for his maintenance. Taxation Restricts Industry. An adequate minimum is all that any Government can hope to be able to provide for the unemployed. The Government must tax the community and draw upon its credit to secure the funds for relief work and sustenance. Taxation is a restriction upon industry and can easily be the cause of more distress through unemployment than the Government can adequately relieve with the funds so raised. Some of us may think that the Victorian Government is holding the reiris too- tight. It is trying to maintain a strict balance between its responsibility for the earliest financial recovery of the State and its responsibility for the maintenance of the unemployed. With the amount of money that has been set aside for relief work and for sustenance it is doing all that efficient and sympathetic administration can do. But it is quite arguable that we could draw further than we are doing upon the improved financial prospects of this State. Perhaps we could now safely increase our borrowing to give more relief work, or increase our taxation to give a higher rate of sustenance. It is difficult to be dogmatic. The Government may reasonably and sincerely believe that by giving industry its best possible chance to recover quickly from the depression it is doing a better service to the unemployed than if it increased the taxation upon-industry so that it might give more direct Government aid. Out of the Government's experience there is gradually developing a definite plan for the future. It is realised that even with a return to such better times ns we have known we will always have this problem of unemployment, and it will now always be a Government responsibility. Australia is behind most of the European countries in that it has had no form of poor law or other Government system for dealing with the problem. Some such system will now have to be established in this country, and there, are already plans for shaping it out of the emergency measures that have been taken in Victoria. The field of unemployment can normally be divided into three'parts. In the first are those who suffer periods of temporary unemployment over which the savings fropi their earnings cannot quite carry them. In the second are those who, through some economic upset, have longer periods of idleness. In the third are those who, from physical or other defects, are not capable of earning a living. System of Insurance. Th'e plan that is contemplated will seek to find an appropriate solution for what are three separate pr6blems. The first case—the case of those who experience relatively short periods of idleness—can, it is thought, be best met by a system of unemployment insurance. The special unemployment tax that is now levied on all earnings would have to be retained in part to provide the fund out of which insurance benefits would be paid. While he was in employment a worker would be contributing to that fund, and when he fell out of employment he would automatically be entitled, without inquiry into his means, to benefits over a certain period. If these benefits carried him over his spell of idleness, his case would adenuately be provided for. But if he was not .ible to find work before the benefits ceased he would come Into the second class of the unemployed and. after an inquiry into his circumstances, would be provided with work by the Government, in return for which he would receive sustenance on mil eh the same system as the Government is now siving work for sustenance. The third class, the unemployable, would, in so far as their needs now met by pension provisions, be a responsibility upon charitable organisations partially subsidised by the Government. It is with the ronjrh outline of such a scheme as this in mind that the Government is gradually building up an organisation and. working towards the recognition of principles that will fit into a permanent system.