TO CREATE MORE WORK ?

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 36, 11 August 1934, Page 8

TO CREATE MORE WORK ?

The two main points in the Labour attack upon .the present system of relief work appear to be: (1) That adequate sustenance should be paid without placing on local bodies the cost of providing and supervising relief works; (2) that if relief work schemes were stopped there would be many new jobs at full wages. As touching the first argument we cannot agree that the local bodies as a whole have been badly treated. For their expenditure they have had many works of value carried out, and, though most of these works would not otherwise have been undertaken for many years, there has been community benefit. Nor should the benefit to the relief workers themselves be wrongly considered. Though it may be said that relief work is demoralising in some of its effects, sustenance without work is much more so. Most of the relief workers, we believe, are better able to retain their self-jrespect fof the thought that they have given full value for the aid they have received. To change over to sustenance for this reason would be unwise; and it would be more unwise still to make the change in the expectation that a great volume of full-time work would be offered. This-expectation, to be held at all, must be based on the belief that much of the relief work now in progress is necessary work and would proceed without a subsidy. This is by no means proved. It is possible that under both 'relief schemes and subsidy schemes some essential work is being done. That is why we have urged recently that the subsidies should be periodically reviewed. But the proportion is probably small * and the remedy is to stop abuse—the local bodies are i expected to help—not to abandon the whole scheme. In the towns abuse is unlikely to escape observation and, besides, it is beyond reason to suggest that either public bodies or individuals are so lacking in fairness as to practise or countenance widespread exploitation.