Unemployment Act

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 77, 24 December 1930, Page 9

Unemployment Act

Sir, —I am one of those —a growing number, I believe—who have a feeling that the Unemployment Act .is being put into operation on illegal lines and would not bear constitutional scrutiny. The Bill as passed by Parliament last session contains several clauses dealing both with unemployment and the sustenance that is payable to the unemployed if work is not found within one week of enforced idleness. The Act has now been in operation for about six weeks, and information concerning registration and the payment of the levy and all penalties for non-compliance therewith have been Well advertised, .but in regard to the clauses dealing with unemployment and the fixing of the date from which sustenance will be payable to men if work is not available for them, a policy of complete silence and inactivity has been adopted., Does not the action of the Government in thus, making public and putting into operation certain provisions of the Bill which carry with them certain obligations and penalties and .the studied suppression and failure to put into operation certain other provisions of the Bill which are of a nature that is beneficial to the public make the whole Bill as thus treated illegal from a constitutional standpoint and the penalties imposed thereunder void? Moreover by mutilating the Bill in imposing the levy ami penalties for non-payment before work was found or any monetary assistance given, the Government has only accentuated the difficulties of the unemployed, and the gloomy outlook now is that they will face the New Year in the same financial position they were in before, but with a £5 fine hanging over, their heads if they fail to pay the levy. This harassing on the part of the Government. I venture to predict, will not be forgotten.—l am, etc., s “TE JUDICE.’ Dannevirke, December 18.