MORE WORK, FEWER DOLES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 46, 24 February 1937, Page 6

MORE WORK, FEWER DOLES.

It is a healthy sign of the times that in Britain nowadays more emphasis is being put lon employment, as against unemployment. The figures of the first are highly encouraging. Itwas estimated that at the end of January the number of insured workers, exclusive of agricultural, was 11,116,000, or 715,000 more than a year ago. The unemployed on the register numbered 1,689,223, or 470,499 fewer than a year ago. Moreover, such is the buoyancy of trade and industry that the seasonal decline in employment in Januarv was only about one-tenth of the usual, and it is expected that a still greater improvement in employment will follow this year. The happy effect of rising employment and falling unemployment is that the workers' insurance funds are expanding, for more contributions are coining in and fewer doles are being paid out. This condition should make easier of accomplishment the efforts now being launched to mitigate the worst effects of unemployment, particularly in the "depressed areas." Certainly, no matter how encouraging financial, trade and industrial statistics may be, no nation ean think itself truly prosperous, nor ean the conscience of the majority of its people be easy, while a formidable percentage lor the population is debarred from sharing | the prosperity. °