CORRESPONDENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 1, 2 January 1932, Page 10

CORRESPONDENCE

EVILS OF THE DOLE

(To the Editor.) _ Sir,—Being a true Britisher and know ing sometuiug of the unemployment insurance, commonly called the dole, ona cannot aliow JUr. U. J. B. Norwood's statement to go by without a reply This insurance scheme has now been worked since X9i2, under four diiierent Governments, first Liberal, second Conservative, third Labour, and fourth Mationai. In tha 19 years it has been in force many amendments have been made, which have mada it one oi the tinest schemes in the world to keep the wolf of poverty from the broad cupboard of the worker,' for himself anil his children. It is an insurance which millions of people pay lor while working every week. What do we pay insurance for of any sort but to receive some benefit when it is due. Mr. Norwood say. there was no control over those in receipt of the dole. This is wrong. Why did not Mr. Norwood go to any of the labour exchanges-in any town or city in ±sntain and ask them for information a* to how they make the unemployed become eligible for payment, and why did he,not also ask at the same source what control the exchanges have over the unemployed? I think Mr. Norwood would be amazed to find out the strict control they have over the workless. The worker has to make himself eligible for payment by iis insurance card being * stamped weekly, and when his employer'has no work for him he has to give him a discharge form and his card stamped to that date. He takes it to the Labour Exchange to register, and if the Labour Exchange has a vacancy on its books for this man m accordance with his trade, ha has to go to the place where they send him, even if it is 20 to 30 miles distent If a f es t0 s° i he M.-.not allowed 'hia

The British Government Labour Exchanges do not pay money away without the strictest investigation into every detail of every case. Tens of thousands of men and women who line up two and threa tunes a week ,to sign their registration card would only be too glad to be hard at work, and. it is nothing lees than an insult to the British worker, who, I believe, is second to none, to. say of him he is happy to live"on!the dole without a thought beyond that or any other aim ia Me at all. It is a pity that we here in JS ?w Zealand have not some similar sound scheme whereby our unemployed could hve without such distress as" we "ate having here. It makes one almost weep {to think of our sons here who have had a good education and stert in life, and nave to face charitable aid and plead for food and 7 OT£t I* T .would be wise and sound policy tor Mr. Norwood to leave the British dole, as he terms it, alone, and commence aft. once to do something to improve our own conditions.—-I am, etc.^ , "

"FATHER OF FOUR."-