Paying for Unemployment.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19813, 28 December 1929, Page 12

Paying for Unemployment.

j Whether agree with Mr J. J. i Dougali's remark that those people in | England 'who are on the dole are quite | content to remain so, and that the | whole country did not seem to be giving i much heed to work, or with that corresj pondent who to-day so hotly attacks him, there can be only one opinion I about the cost or the dole, and about | the burden which the taxpayers of the Homeland have carried every day since the Armistice. Between November 11th, 1918. and the end of 1928, a sum of £363,460,000 was spent in unemployment benefit, £62,445,000 in out-of-work donations for ex-service men and civilians, and £72,772,000 in Poor Law relief, making an alarming total of nearly five hundred million pounds. There will be large additions to cover the current year's expenditure, and a much heavier outlay during the coming year when the enlarged benefits given by the new Unemployment Act, the Widows' Pensions Act and other measures of a social character become operative. During November Mr Philip Snowden, the Chancellor, in reply to a question in Parliament, gave information regarding the estimated expenditure required under social measures passed since the Labour Government took office or in immediate contemplation. In the aggregate the commitments involved an additional expenditure of £8,250,000 in the current financial year, and of nearly £19,000,000 next year. Those totals were exclusive of the commitments arising from the operation of Acts passed £o enable unemployed relief schemes to be undertaken, and according to Mr J. H. Thomas, Minister for Unemployment, expenditure to the amount of between forty and fifty million sterling had been sanctioned up to the latter part of November. Early in December details of the Government's plans for dealing with unemployment were issued in a White Paper and showed that estimates for expenditure on schemes under the Development Act and under the Unemployment Grants Committee totalled just j over twenty million sterling. The expenditure on roads and bridges was ; dealt with separately, and it was stated that schemes for road development, for i which grants under the Road Fund had j been applied for, had been approved j either in detail or in principle to the value of over twenty-four million. It j ought to make us think that the work j to be provided will be equivalent to ; the employment of one hundred thouj sand men for one year.