THE DOLE IN ENGLAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20084, 23 October 1928, Page 6

THE DOLE IN ENGLAND.

NEW ZEALANDER'S VIEWS. "A REMEDY MUST BE FOUND." [from our own correspondent.] LONDON. Sept. 7. Mr. E. Earla Yaile, of Auckland, is apprehensive for the state of Great Britain, and ho voices those apprehensions in a letter to the Morning Post. He maintains that a remedy must be found for unemployment. "England appears no longer the innstress of her destinies," Mr. Yaile says. "The ship drifts. Nobody ear*. Everybody waits, Micawber-like, for something to turn up—for some god to hop out of some machine. The dreadful shadow of unemployment darkens the land. Pauperism is accepted as inevitable. The people deceivo themselves. They call charitable aid 'unemployment insurance,' and are satisfied. "Everyono recognises tho evil; no one has the courage to grapple with it. Tho universal answer is, 'The "dole." cannot bo done without. Thero would be. a revolution.' How pitiful! Not only is tho vital independent spirit of tho recipients of tho 'dole' thereby corrupted, hut an equally evil effect is produced ou those who pay it from fear. "A remedy must bo found. England simply cannot continue to foot a budget of £800,000,000 per annum and keep millions of countries down. Diseaso will kill as surely as blows. This England, with her wonderful record, unique in tho world's history, that no foreign foe has been ablo to set foot on her soil for more than eight and a-half centuries, may bo brought low by the enemy within. I say a remedy can and must be found." Several letters have followed Mr. Yailo's original one. One writer says: — "Prior to 1914 we had a normal unemployed population of about 600,000; at present we have an abnormal one of about 1,250,000. Only about 700,000 out of Great Britain's 44,000,000 are engaged in actual cultivation of tho soil; this is the crux of tho problem of , unemployment. In France .cultivators of (he soil exceed those of Great Britain by 6,000,000, while unemployment is nonexistent. Until wo can reduce the existing disparity botween our urban and rural population the spectre of unemployment, with its corollary of the dole, will continue to darken our horizon." Another correspondent points out that "since tho war women have tended to utuler-sell and displace men in many occupations, abandoning what was formerly one of their chief occupations, domestic service. They prefer employment at less than a living wage, with unlimited freedom at night, to good pay, comfortable homes, and good food, but somo restrictions on their freedom. "While there are thousands of ex-ser-vice men unemployed, the public services—e.g., the Ministry of Pensions and the Post Office —recruit annually largo numbers of untrained young girls for work which men could do better. l' lfl increased employment of girls hajs enabled large numbers of them to quality for the 'dole,' which they prefer to honest work as domestic servants. Iheio arc probably more vacancies for domestic servants than there aro women i'or 'dolo.*