ROOSEVELT’S £1,000,000,000

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 August 1935, Page 8

ROOSEVELT’S £1,000,000,000

RELIEF ON PUBLIC WORKS There may be advantages in letting other countries develop their relief services first (writes Anthony Winn in the London “Daily Telegraph”). , The mould of relief and unemployment insurance in England is set and hard to change. America, starting late, is now trying to build a machine which will (a) ensure that nobody starves; (b) do so by putting all the employable population to work.

The knowledge that work relief will supersede direct relief in all but a small minority of eases is unofficial but sure. Only a defeat at, the Presidential election could, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration thinks, interrupt it, and they do not reckon on this until 1940 at the earliest, by which time they hope to have made work relief an, organic part of the State,. Just at. the moment they are like men who have struggled up a pass and see the valley before them. . Even if the Administration’s plans are only partially successful there is hure to be a Socialist clamour for the same kind of thing in this country. If they fail entirely the policy of the National Government here in turning down public works will be justified. Activities which might seem remote from the average. English reader are, therefore, of direct interest, spcially if he is a white-col-lar man with a job in jeopardy. . The United States Federal Government went into the relief business in 1933. By January of this year £39,375,000 in all had been spent. There is, of course, .assistance from charity, and a variable quota is demanded from each State, but the Federal authority has taken over a steadily increasing proportion of the burden since the start.

As their share has increased, so has the total number of those on relief, which is now as high as it was two years ago. It rose from 18,400,000 in October, 1934, to 30,650,000 in January, 1935. Of these approximately 53» per cent, receive a dole. The major activities of the workrelief employees include planning; improvement of public property; repairing of houses instead of paying the rent; welfare; nursing; education; and the arts. 400,000 are working on roads;. 369,000 are doing professional and clerical work; and 132,000 women are sewing, typing, nursing, and the like.

WORK SCHEMES In this way these many workers have already got through enough money for Al Smith, the former Democratic candidate for the Presidency, to talk about the “heavy, cold, clammy of bureaucracy.” But the Opposition is still more dazed by. the proposed expenditure on works relief of £1,000,000,000, placed at the President’s disposal—enough to buy any city in the United States except Chicago and New York. The President could purchase Philadelphia and have enough left over for Denver, Colorado. To sign cheques alone 1,000 new workers will have to be taken on. . .

. The money will be spent on 200 different categories of work schemes, under eight main heads:

1. Roads and elimination of level crossings; , , 2. Clearing rural slums and rehabilitating rural America; 3. Electrifying farms; 4. Low-rental houses'; 5. Helping white-collar workers; 6. Doubling the numbers of the Civilian Conservation Corps in charge of reafforestation and similar problems; 7. Loans to counties, cities and states; 8. Flood control And prevention of soil erosion. ’ Mr. Harry Hopkins, the Federal Relief Administrator, and his Department are criticised more for thoughtless extravagance than anything else. Under this head the treatment of white-collar workers is an excellent laboratory case. The Administration maintains two points, both of which involve extra expenditure. 1. If in times of prosperity a man has established for himself and his family a standard of living higher than that of an unskilled labourer, it is neither logical nor realistic for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration to drop his standard of living below that of an unskilled labourer. This is a revolutionary principle in relief, but aiij. indirect denial of the charge that the New Dealers are a bunch of Communistic levellers.

2. It is equally illogical and unrealistic to put a white-collar worker on to heavy manual labour, probably disqualifying him for his normal profession without teaching him any other. .

The Federal Emergency Relief Administration acted on these two premises for a period and was sniped at intervals by its critics, for pauperisation and interference with natural economic laws. Some months ago the City of New York decided on an aldermanic investigation of the work of relief, and the fun began.

“BOONDOGGLING.” The committee found that two principal activities were eurythmic dancing and "boondoggling.” It took some time to explain "boondoggling,” and the definition was finally wrapped up in a vague, foggy paraphrase. But, broadly speaking, boondoggling consists in the practice of the very elementary arts and crafts. Rugged Americans, rightly appalled by the prospect of several thousands of their fellow citizens doing raffia work, applauded the investigation.

So far there is less criticism of the Government’s long-term schemes, on which the bulk of the £1,000,000,000 will be spent. The Civilian Conservation Corps is popular; counties, cities and States want the loans; if soil erosion is not prevented the Middle West will become n desert.

I (v(d-cros>ings will he eliminated because Mr. Hearst and the public were shocked by a recent smash in which 11 children were killed. But the, plans for inral rehabilitation are sure, ro come under heavy tire because the subsistence homestead is a part of the scheme. Fifty per cent, of the farmers of America produce 9tJ per cent, of the crops. Many of the remaining 50 per cent. (.’’,000,000) are what is known as siibtnarginal. The Adminfiliation hopes to move them into model communities, self-contained, semi agricult ui al and semi-indust rial. The opposition calls this a romantic dream.

Tiie New Deal has never ns yet minded interfering with natural laws of economic recovery. If private capital is deterred from investment by Government competition in public

works, that, says the New-Deal, -is due to the cowardice of private capital. 't- r js' It is impossible s to., .saywifh certainty that, the Government defiance of capitalistic theory Js doomed to failure, because nothing of the kind has ever been tried before. But if private capital does not know where the Government is going to turn up next with, for instance,, a grandiose electrical scheme, prepared to supply power at low rates and ignore its losses, then private capital has a. good superficial case for its cowardice.

The accusation that humane relief rates demoralise the population is an old story in Great Britain. Obviously if one person in every 20 is unemployed, some of those millions will prefer idleness on the starvation mai gin to work, v , But it has never been proved that as many as 50 per cent, of the unemployed are lazy to this extent, and until this is proved, arguments for discontinuing relief must remain utterly inhuman and unconvincing. But it is more serious when those in employment get discontented, and in America they are. Nearly every small employee in coffee-stalls, filling stations, pih-table saloons, and so on is angry about high relief rates. This typuld seem to indicate that it is up to F.E.R.A. to temper its humanity with more economic -wisdom, and in particular to reflect whether the different standard of relief for whitecollar workers is quite as logical and realistic as has been supposed. The* same criticism applies to, the payment of the prevailing, ..wage on public 'works. Skilled manual labourers see awkward, inexpert hands being paid, the same rate as themselves for work that is done more slowly and less efficiently. They, again, think: “Is there any value or virtue in the skill and hard work in which I was educated to believe?” The payment of. relief to strikers is a dangerous precedent,. obviously dependent upon the complete loyalty and sound judgment of the. National Labour Relations Board, which decides whether relief shall be paid or not.

Criticisms of graft, incompetence, and the ipyasioh of the ranks of the relief workers by impractical college graduates are probably true in part, although it is well to remember that the relief workers have uncovered cases of want and suffering worse than anything to be found in Durham or South Wales. . . ~ Mr. Roosevelt’s. £1,000,000,000 appropriation exceeds anything the Socialists in our own country were doing in 1931. Yet,,, although the monetary market is weak, the dollar has not suffered heatfly. The jyhole experiment would be rimch mdre dangerous for Great Britain than for America—• ■ . . , Nevertheless, if it. Succeeds and if the President gets, some of Ills money back, we in Britain may have to look into our Unemployment . .Relief system again. There. ought to, be some way of stopping thb white-collar class from starving and unemployed men from putting their heads into gasovens.