INDUSTRIAL STATE

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 102, 2 May 1919, Page 7

INDUSTRIAL STATE

REABSORBING WAR WORKERS

UNEMPLOYMENT DONATIONS

DEFENDED.

(UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION COPIRIGHT.)

(AUSTRALIAN-NEW ZEALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.)

(Received May 2, 8.30 a.m.)

LONDON, 30th April,

In the House of Commons Sir R. S. Home, Minister of Labour, defended the unemployment donations, for which the estimate for the current financial year is £25,000,000. The main reason for'unemployment was the deliberate policy of maintaining the blockade. The country could hot say that the unemployed should not receive compensation owing to conditions which were necessary in order to achieve the full fruits of victory. One milliop people were drawing benefits, and of this number 250,000 were demobilised soldiers. The latter had been guaranteed for a year against unemployment. One hundred thousand workers in the cotton trade were drawing benefits. The scheme had been greatly abused, but there was little foundation for criticism, and he intended to appoint a committee to inquire into the administration of the scheme. The greatest difficulty was in regard to domestic servants, as, . after being employed at munition work girls, would not return to domestic service.

The unemployment donations to 17,000 girls had been cancelled. Industry had reabsorbed since the armistice three million workers, eighty per cent, of whom were ex-soldiers. The most hopeful feature of the new labour arrangements was the formation of industrial'councils, to bring the workers and the employers together to negotiate. Thirty-one of these existed,, covering two million workers, while twenty-two drafting committees covered another million workers.