The Dominion MONDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1928. MAKING THE WORKER PAY FOR THE WORK-SHY

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 29, 29 October 1928, Page 10

The Dominion MONDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1928. MAKING THE WORKER PAY FOR THE WORK-SHY

' Already the election campaign has revealed some loose thinking on the subject of unemployment insurance. The Labour-Socialist Party, making the most of last winter’s depression, is using unemployrpent insurance as one of its drawing cards. The work-shy type of individual who on the flimsiest pretext lives on the State and on his neighbours will no doubt find the picture attractive. It is this type which has clung most tenaciously to "the dole” in Britain. . Unemployment insurance has a pleasant sound. It implies that a man can safeguard himself and his family against the loss o employment, and during periods of idleness live comfortably at the expense of someone else. That at least is the generally accepted idea. Somebody, of course, has to pay, but those who advocate unemployment insurance are content to claim that the payment should be divided between employer, worker, and State. This really means that the community pays—that is to say, the cost of unemployment insurance is added in one way and another to the cost of living of everybody. So it is that the steady hardworking man who earns his wages and keeps his job has to pay for the idle hours of the slacker. - That, of course, is only one aspect of the question. 1 here is at times the difficulty of finding work for men—quite good workers —who lose their jobs through trade and business depression. They must be provided for in times of emergency, but is unemployment insurance, which operates continuously in good times or bad, the best way? In effect it has much the same influence as “the dole. It pays something for idleness, thus encouraging the shiftless and lazy. It tends to .sap the morale of the weaker spirits and lessen that self-reliance and enterprise which make for the progress and development of the individual-and of the community. “The dole” has been a demoralising influence wherever adopted. Criticism has been directed against the system of relief works instituted to assist unemployed, but it at least gives a greater measure of assistance and without the evil after-effects of the dole. Under "the dole” system, be it remembered, we would add to the burdens of the real worker, who would have to pay his share; the employer, who would have to adjust his prices to find the money; and the State, which would have to impose extra taxation for its contribution. There is, in fact, little to be said for unemployment'insurance, either from the economic or the humanitarian point of view. On the other hand, there is a good deal to be said from both these points of view for a workable Scheme for insurance against invalidity through sickness. A genuine hard-working man might have serious qualms about contributing part of his wages for the support and encouragement of a'class of professional loafers, but he would be the first to offer something to remove the financial anxiety of a sick fellow-worker unable to earn. The employer and the State would take the same view.