BRITISH UNEMPLOYED.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 138, 10 December 1908, Page 7

BRITISH UNEMPLOYED.

AN AMENDING BILL. By Telegraph.— Press Association.— Copyright. LONDON, 9th December. A Bill to amend the Unemployed Act has been introduced in the House of Commons by Mr. Keir Hardie, Labour member for Merthyr-Tydvil. Under the measure it is proposed to authorise the local authorities to pay wages out of the halfpenny rate they are already empowered to collect. The Local Government Board may appoint local distress committees in places where none exist but are found to be required. In the House of Commons, on the 26th October, Mr. ileir Hardie moved that the Government measures in regard to the unemployed were inadequate, but the motion was lost by 68 to 236. During his speech Mr. Hardio summed up the unemployed /thus : — Skilled workers ... 750,000 Unskilled workers ... 1,500,000 2,250,000 "If," said he, "we allow that each person represents two dependents, we get the total of 6,750,000 as the number of persons whose case is being considered by the House this afternoon." As he swung towards Mr. Burns, his voice took a warmer tone. "If tho niggardly policy which has so discredited the Local Government Board for the last two years is to be continued, the making of the grant is for window-dress-ing and not for practical purposes." He appealed to the Government to take the distribution of the grant away from the Local Government Board, and give it to a committee of the Cabinet or to a committee of the House. Left to the Local Government Board, every a.pplication would be scrutinised in the narrowest possible way, whereas a committee might consider the human 'side. Surely the Government had devised more than a miserly grant of 3£d a head. Mr. John Bums, although he has not now the official support of the British trades unions, is (recently wrote a London correspondent) probably the best friend the British workman has to-day. Working as President of the Local Government Board, he is generally regarded as the dominating influence in having brought about the expenditure of big sums Of money by the Government and the London County Council, and by many local authorities throughout England, for relief works for the unemployed. John Burns is well beyond the flashy theory stage, which distinguishes too many political Labour lights in Great Britain to-day. He knows what is practical, and he does it.