STATE INSURANCE AND UNEMPLOYMENT

Maoriland Worker, Volume 13, Issue 30, 25 July 1923, Page 1

STATE INSURANCE AND UNEMPLOYMENT

I H s&§l!CflfP IlTi HEFTS' wr c* IHeH^lli^lCJ^fe I -, ' A\ the ]>resent tliei'C is a dead set, in all parts of the British Empire, against every form of public enterprise. The rapid extension uf the principle of state and municipal ownership has scared the profiteering classes, who foresee a time when their occupations will lie gone. Anything resembling 1 a failure on the part of a pub-licly-owned concern is avidly snapped up and broadcasted across - the planet, and kept editors work it up in the interest of private .capitalism. In all this propaganda insistence is laid on the allegation that, when a State utility fails, the failure is due, not to circumstances foreign to the principle, but to the principle itself. The idea is to make people think that State enterprise is essentially incompetent and cannot possibly perform a public service with the .economy and efficiency so remarkable in modern capitalism!! f ' Because these people never refer to the failwes of capitalism I ' fis probably being a contributing cause to the losses of a State organisation' (Avhenever these occur) we are glad to note the fol- • lowing passage in the annual report of our State Insurance De- ■ partmcut (Accident Branch.) ; " The premium income, depending as it does upou wages paid in the various industries, has been to • some extent ADVERSELY AFFECTED BY THE PREVALENCE < OF UNEMPLOYMENT." . Bere we have a case Avhere the evil of unemployment, which v arises directly from the operations of capitalism and from the mist takes of capitalist politicians, works injury on the earning capao Ity of a State Insurance Department, but if the Department showed ■ ? ; deficit on this account, the blame would be attributed by anti- . -Socialist agitators, not to the unemployment, but to the principle v g£ national interference with the private monopoly of insurance. *• It is the same with the railways. Nationally-owned railways \ m Australasia are not paying handsomely at the moment, but iio \ ipne m his senses would argue that this is because they are the pro- , perty of the nation. In reality they are suffering because a capi- { twist war and a capitalist peace have prejudiced the world's s - 1 jeeonomy. Yet even Sir John Simon talked in. the Commons last if the State railways in Queensland had produced a g^falamnous condition!. ',