UNEMPLOYMENT BILL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20622, 22 July 1930, Page 6

UNEMPLOYMENT BILL.

CRITICISM OP MEASURE.

FEATURES

OBJECTION TO POLL TAX,

BT TOM BLOOmVORTTI

It 13 claimed that the Unemployment Sill, now before Parliament., is based on the recommendations of tlie committee which considered and reported on tlio matter, but, in detail (lie. recommendations and the liill widely differ. The first difference noted is ono of name:—The committee recommended an employment hoard and an employment fund. The bill provides for an unemployment board and an unemployment fund. That may seem trifling, but as the principle function of the board is to provide rmploynient and to use the fund for that purpose, it would seem more appropriate Ihat the terms used by tho committee should bo adhered to. Tlio committee's investigations covered all employment, men and women; tlio bill provides only for payments from men. In several of our industries largo numbers of women are already employed, and only a few weeks sro an application was niado to tho Court f'f .Arbitration by a body of employers for an amendment of an award so ns to permit of female labour being employed in their industry. If the board is to lie concerned only with finding employment for men it could try to do so as tlio bill now stands by recommending the. discharge of all women from industry on tho grounds that their continued employment forced men out. of employment, and on t • tho sustenance benefits of the fund. Women have suffered hardship from unemployment not only as wives of unemployed men, but through being themselves unemployed, and there seems to be no good reason for excluding them from th is scheme. No Spreading of Cost. The greatest departures from tho comTnittee s recommendations, however, nre in the sources from which the bill proposes to raise tho fund. Six sources wero recommended by the committee, as follows • (1) A flat individual lax on all persons eighteen year? of use mid over. . (2) A flat tax on nil incomes in excess of XHOO t>er annum. (3) A flat, tax on all undistributed profits of companies and on dividends of absentee shareholders. (i) A flat tax on tho taxable balance of unimrroved value nf country lauds as Assessed for land tax. (5) A contribution from counties, cities, boroughs and town districts. (6) From the Consolidated Fund of the Stato one third of the total expenditure of the employment board in each year.

The bill proposes to draw revenue from Iwo sources only: (1) The contributor, who is every male person 20 years of age and upwards, with some exceptions; and (2) (he Consolidated Fund. There is no attempt to spread the rost -equitably; instead of that we have ii proposal for a most unjust and inequitable form of levy. Every male person is to pay 30s per year irrespective of his income or his ability io pay. According to the 1950 Year 'Book, of those who made returns for income tax for the year ended March, 3929, 66,595 had incomes of less than £4OO, whilo 48 had incomes of over £40.000 for the same year, and yet each member of each of these two groups would pay to the fund 30s per year it they were males • if females, they would pay nothing. An Economic Loss. There are, of course, many thousands tviih incomes so small that, they do not have to make returns for income tax, yet each of these would also bo required <o pay 30s per year. It, will he said, of course, that the "man with an income of £40.000 per annum* is not likely to benefit by tho Unemployment Act, but the same argument could be used to exempt him frum payment in proportion to his wealth to all other forms of taxation. I think it could be clearly demonstrated that if this Act is successful in its operations Jit all, and to the extent which it is successful, the wealthy will benefit to a greater degree than the poor, as is the case, of course, with almost all forms of social legislation. Tt is recognised that an unemployed man is not only a charge on public funds for maintenance: He is also an economic loss to the State, because his power to labour is not being used. The main function of the proposed board is to place and keep workers in employment, and to the extent to which it succeeds in this national wealth will be increased, and as wealth will be divided in the future in somewhat tho same proportions as it has been in the past, it follows that the added wealth, which resulted from more regular employment, would go in greater proportions to the wealthy than to tho worker. Relieving the Taxpayer.

Tf the proposal now before us wore the ordinary form of unemployment inMirance, which has been adopted in other countries, tlm method proposed in the bill for getting the money would not lie quito so objectionable, though, even then, it would be far from just, but this is not tho ordinary form of unemployment insurance. It is a form which is designed, first, to provide work, and to pay a maintenance allowance only when it is impossible to find work. The fund which is to bo raised mnv be used to benefit the taxpayer and the ratepayer in several ways. It, may be used to pay the expenses of its administration; to establish labour oxchanges; to establish and ecjuip training camps; to assist workers by means of grants to pursuo courses of study; arid it may be used to make grants or loans to persons or authorities to enable them to undertake development works calculated to relievo unemployment. Jtt any, or all, of these avenues, whatever is spent from the fund will, to Bomo extent, bo a relief to the taxpayer, and in addition to I hem all, the fund may be used to make sustenance allowances to thogo for whom the hoard is unable to provide work. In doing this tho tund will bo relieving the ratepayer as well as the taxpayer. Ability to Pay.

Tf "Unemployment a rises very largely from social conditions," as the. Unemployment Committer assert, there is no more justification for adopting this inequitable form of taxation for the purpose of dealing with it than there is for any other purpose. Why not a poll tax of, say, X.2 per head for education, and so on throughout the whole purposes for which publi; revenue is raised? Hie answer is that in almost all countries that basis has long since been abandoned in favour of the ability to pay basis, and there js no sound social nr economic reason for adopting any other Ihnn the ability to pay basis for raising revenue in tin's instance.

1 think that in so far as the funds are <o be used for ordinary unemployment insurance purposes, workers, employers and the State should contribute, but in so far as they are to be used for purposes of providing employment the re,venue should lie provided through the ordinary methods of taxation. there are a good many other amendments to the bill which could be suggested, and no doubt will be, but the poll-tax method of raising revenue, which is proposed, is so objectionable that .1 oo not think the bill should be accepted unless or until that vital matter is corTected.

,™. B J?° l ' ld staled that the 43 tix*ompatueath ThT''™ over * lo 'W>9 •" £4O 000 aa income of GBloodwnr+vf j um v referred tc by Mr. •-Editor Hebaj,"] New Zealand.