THE UNEMPLOYMENT BILL.

Evening Star, Issue 20538, 17 July 1930, Page 10

THE UNEMPLOYMENT BILL.

Pekfobmaxce has followed closely on the heels of the Government’s promise to bring down a Bill to make permanent provision for the relief of unemployment. That something should be done in this connection was tho request of a select committee of the House to which was referred Mr Fraser’s Unemployed Workers Bill last .The committee which was originally set up by the Coates Government, consisting of two representatives of the employers, two of workers, the Government Statistician, and tho Under-Secretary for Immigration, has since gone very thoroughly into the question, and the assurance was given by Mr Voitch, who preceded Mr Smith as Minister for Labour, that its report would not bo treated as a dead letter. The outstanding features of the report were its treatment of unemployment as a social condition in which the whole community was concerned and its acceptance of it as a permanent condition. Tho first principle could not ba fairly challenged; the second was much more a matter for argfement and even for surprised shock and resentment, though denial of it, with the consequence of accordant ac-tion-—or inaction—has been compared to the conduct of the ancient Maoris, who, “ objecting to tho placid acceptance of wounds as a permanent feature of war, declined to take an ambulance with them on tho war path.” The saving features of tho committee’s scheme were that*it' was not so much a scheme Tor providing doles, which are apt to bo a debilitating resource, making matters worse in the long run instead of better wherever they arc applied, as of first stimulating natural sources of employment, then providing relief work, where those sources failed, only using the dole as a last expedient. An uniployment board which would fulfil the first task and help to organise present avenues of employment, including relief work, so that there would be shorter dead spells and less of wastefulness than at present, would perform a real service for the community. The Bill which was brought down yesterday

is on a smaller scale than the committee’s scheme. The Government prefers to feel its way with this experiment, which is the course of wisdom. Instead of a fund of a million a year it will be satisfied with something like threequarters of that sum, and tho plans for taxation have been reduced accordingly. Instead of the levies on individuals which were fixed by the committee at IBs a year for, males between the ages of eighteen and twenty, and 24s thereafter, with less rates for females, a rate has been fixed of 80s a year for all males of twenty and upwards, and females will neither contribute nor, except as wives or children of those receiving the sustenance payment, be benefited. A weakness of that change is that there are many single women earning good wages who can afford to pay 80s a year for a social scheme better than some fathers of families, with others who will have their own difficulties when they are unemployed. The levy, will be easier to collect when it is made the same for all ages, and on a basis of quarterly payments it will not be much for working contributors to find. Tho principle of a flat rate is not perfect, but differential rates which would be fair would bo far from simple. Exemption of non-earners is provided for, and the levy will be all the new taxation that is suggested. This smaller fund will be subsidised by tho Government tc the amount of one-half of expenditure which is made from it, instead of one-third by the committee’s scheme. The functions of the proposed board, which make the prevention of rather than payment for unemployment a first duty, seem to have been very carefully thought out, and it is on the degree in which it observes this order of importance that the capacity of this new scheme to be an aid, and not a disadvantage, to tho community will depend. Labour will presumably support the Bill, since, after first misgivings of it, its support was generally given to the committee’s report. Certainly there will bo room for some interesting discussion of it when it is referred to a special committee.