IN FAIRNESS TO ALL

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 50, 27 August 1930, Page 8

IN FAIRNESS TO ALL

Two points of difference emerged from the protracted discussion of the Unemployment Bill yesterday: (1) The Labour demand for a graduated levy, and (2) the exclusion of

women. On the question of contributions generally the Leader of the Labour Party was reasonable in his attitude. He did not seek exemption of workers. His proposal to substitute a graduated levy for the fiat rate is supported in part by the Commissioners' recommendation of a levy of 24s annually oil adult males receiving less than £300 a year and a penny -in the pound income tax on individual taxable incomes and individual company profits. It is

embodied alsl in the Government's

Bill, since the Government will contribute half of the expenditure (instead of one-third as proposed by the Commissioner) and will draw that

half from the Consolidated Fund, which is contributed by income taxpayers on a graduated scale. While this subsidy is provided for il is quite wrong to say that the wealthy man pays only as much as the poor man for unemployment. The Commissioner, we believe, proposed the earmarked income tax as a direct check upon the fund and upon new demands from it. There is much to be said for that check. A man will allow .expenditure for which he pays indirectly to grow without protest, but he will be more vigilant if he pays directly. Against this the Government raises two objections: That the graduated levy would be expensive to collect and that it is unsound to mark off sections of the national taxing field for special purposes. We do not dispute the soundness of these arguments; but it is a weakness of the scheme, to our mind, that so much of the finance is to come from the Consolidated Fund. The contributory principle must be maintained and even strengthened. It is the main safeguard against a dolej development. The exclusion of women is wholly desirable at this stage, for two reasons: There is no machinery and no experience for the provision of work as an alternative to sustenance with women (and sustenance without

the work alternative Vould be most dangerous), and a levy on the same basis as the levy on men would be most unjust to women who are not in paid employment. It would, in effect, double the levy on the married man without (in most cases) giving him double or any additional benefit. When it is said that women are excluded from benefit only half the case is stated. The other half is that they are exempt from payment. The Labour demand for inclusion means that all women must be compelled to pay. The figures quoted by the Minister of Labour show howinequitable this demand would be. There are 80,668 women working for pay, on their own account, or employing labour, and 286,238 who come under the headings "retired,"

"pensioners," or "domestic duties." Are all the latter, who are out of the industrial field, to be compelled to pay to benefit a few of the 80,000? Justice and expediency both necessitate the exclusion and exemption of women, at least until reasonable and equitable workable arrangements for [heir inclusion have been made. At j

the present time and with present plans inclusion would operate in practice largely as a double demand on the husbands.