"THE DOLE HABIT"

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 49, 26 August 1930, Page 8

"THE DOLE HABIT"

DANGEROUS SPREAD

A WARNING BY "THE TIMES"

The responsibility for the spread of the dole habit falls upon the Government rather than the dole-hunters.

Under the heading "The- Dole Habit" "The Times," in a leading article last' month, gave serious warning of the effects of amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act in undermining tho insurance principle and encouraging living upon doles. The article commented upon an official calculation of increased expenditure from the Unemployment Insurance Fund, and contcndod that this was under-stated. "Still less, of course" ("The Times" proceeded), does the calculation represent tho whole cost of unemployment. Tho fund is bound to pay benefit to those who qualify for it because they have paid at least thirty contributions in tho past tiro years. The rest of tho unemployed are paid more or less of a dolo by the Exchequer, and" (according to an answer given in the Houso of Commons) aro now costing the taxpayer £18,0,00,000 a year. It is a melancholy thought that Mr. Sn'owdcn's liability to find this money for doles may have forced him to imperil tho existence of tho Government by refusing to find a similar sum for the relief of company reserves; and it would bo hard to find a moro significant exaniplo of how a j prodigal 'short-term' policy frustrates a 'long-term' policy towards unemployment. Tho House of Commons would do a public service by asking Mr. Snowdc'i) when the mew .borrowing Bill is introduced, to draw up a draft j balance-sheet covering the operations of the 'short-term' policy during tho current year. Whatever ho might bo able to set off as credit -he must show on the debit side £18,000,000 given by the taxpayer in direct doles to the unemployed, £3,300,000 in doles to widows, a contingent liability of £23,----000,000 advanced to tho Insurance IPund^ a substantial sum given for more and bigger grants in aid of re-1 lief works, and a further largo sum! added to the rates by that part of the | £110,000,000 sanctioned for relief Works which will be spent within the j period under review. Ho would thus have little difficulty in convincing his Socialist critics that the Government is thoroughly inoculated with the | dolo habit. i EASY TO BE 3DX.E. "Signs are not wanting that the dole | habit is spreading front the Govern- j ment to the people under the cneour- J agement of the Unemployment Insurance Act of 1930. The figures already quoted show how far the Socialists have realised their ambition to install a non-contributory system. The expenditure of £18,000,000 a year upon doles means that between 300,000 and 400,----000 persons are drawing relief at benefit rates,, and can continue to draw it provided that they havo worked in insurable employment for eight out of the preceding 104 weeks, or for thirty weeks at any time. No person has to look for work, and ifo person of aay ingenuity need stay iv a ijob found for him if he does not Hko it. Our cor-, respondents have detailed cases showing that bpth tho private employer and local authorities find it impossible to prevent men from leaving employment within a few hours or days of taking it up; and tho Act furnishes even moro excuses for dropping a job than for not finding one. The most flagrant idler can plead that the job was not 'suitable employment,' and, if that excuse fails, he has only to provoke the employer to' discharge him in order to go straight back to benefit. A remarkable case is reported as 'not very exceptional' by the Department of Health for Scotland in their recent annual report. A young man of twenty-seven years of age (now dead) never paid more- than one contribution a year since he ■ entered insurance; and that contribution was in-respect of annual attendance at camp. He not only lived but married 'on the dole,' having found out, as one x>S our correspondents remarks, that this is the equivalent of living on the proceeds of £2000 safely, invested. It is estimated that £400 of capital expenditure is by industry to put a man in work. The break-up of the insurance system by. the dole means that every dole~ receiver is drawing the equivalent, of interest on tho capital ■ sufficient to put fivemen in work. The dole habit, translated into legislation, leads to curious results in spheres other than that of. unemployment insurance, Tho report already qnoted relates that a man hit his wife on the head with a coal hammer.' Thinking he had killed her, he drowned himself in the Clyde. ; She recovered and is drawing a widow's pension. . INCOME TOR NO WORK. "The responsibility for the spread of ths dole habit falls upon, the Government rather than the dole hunters. The really serious point is that the income of a person out of work has become very little less than the income of many persons in work, and very much more likely than before to provide him with a comfortable living. The cost of living has fallen since 1921 by about 22$ per cent. During the same period the rates of unemployment benefit have risen by 13 per cent; for a single man and by 33 per cent, for a married man witluthree children. The real income'of the unemployed is thus much greater; tho real income of the employed is about the same —perhaps oven a little less. A married man with three children can draw 32s a week if he does not work, and 35s a week if he works on a farm. Why, he may well ask, should ho work for 3s a week? The temptation to moral deterioration offered by the invitation to draw the dole is increased by the physical deterioration induced by the absence of regular work. People suffering from unemployment for long periods become physically unfit for the relief works which appear to bo. all the Government can-think of providing. The national reputation suffers—as it undoubtedly suffered in the case. of the Canadian harvesters—because unfitnoss is mistaken for unwillingness. Tho behaviour of the unemployed reflects therefore a national danger even, more than a national scandal. For both danger and scandal the Government- must bear a heavy responsibility. They havo smashed the insurance system; they have lavished the national resources on doles and relief works; and thereby they have done much to frustrate their own professed 'loug-term' policy of the stimulation of industry by which alone our people can be kept in work and fit for work. Tho sooner they realise that public indignation is rising against the propagation of the dole habit tho better for themselves and for tho country."