BRITAIN'S UNEMPLOYED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20721, 14 November 1930, Page 13

BRITAIN'S UNEMPLOYED

RAPIDLY-GROWING HOST. ASPECT OF " DOLE " SYSTEM. TREMENDOUS BURDEN. Some aspects of tho British "dole" system are dealt with in an article in tho journal John Bull by Mr. A. G. Gardiner. Ho writes:—"The PostmasterGeneral said the other night that even a Government of Archangels could not have saved the country from the desperate straits into which it, has fallen. I know nothing, and I think Mr. Lees Smith knows nothing, of the political capacity of archangels. What is unfortunately clear to everybody is that tho political capacity of tho Mac Donald Go\ r ernment has proved disastrously unequal to its task. Tried by the acid (est of unemployment, it:; failure is catastrophic. Let us look at a few facts. Hid host of tho unemployed was increased last week by 80,000. It amounts now to nearly two and a-quarter millions. Since Mr. Mac Donald carno into office little moro than a year ago, there has been an addition of a million—in other words, the unemployed have nearly doubled under the Labour Administration. "By general consent we have not yet touched the bottom. It is openly predicted, even by members of the Government, that there will be three million unemployed before Christmas, and it is even regarded as possible that before the winter is over the total may be in tho neighbourhood of four millions. Consider the financial consequences of this. A Colossal Drain. "The unemployment insurance fund is insolvent'. In spite of increased replenishments it is borrowing from the Exchequer at the rate of £60,000 a week, or 31 millions a year. It is in debt to the State already to tho extent of over £50,000,000. Should the gloomy estimate of this winter be fulfilled tho fund will be borrowing at the rate of £80,000,000 a year. If this colossal drain continues it is not only the insurance fund that witl be bankrupt. The State itself will be bankrupt. And remember that with this mountainous and increasing burden our capacity to bear it is diminishing. Tho revenue returns, in spite of increased taxation, are falling. They must continue to fall. "We aro creating a new "rentier" class, largely among the young—a, class which is coming to look upon unemployment as its career and upon the State as the source of its supplies. It contributes nothing to the fund from which it draws and nothing to the natural productiveness which is the ultimate source of its income. It is parasite upon labour. The employed pay into tho fund and tho professional unemployed draw out. Some of the Abuses, "I do not suggest that the unconvenanted benefit could be avoided, say, in the circumstances of Lancashire. But the lengths to which it has gone and the abuses associated with it are flagrant and scandalous. The herring girls from the North finish their seasonal job and go back on the "dole." Married women are discovering that by taking occasional work they can draw the benefit while at home, no matter if their husbands are in good work. "Boys leave their jobs because it pays the family belter for them to be at home on the "dole." The male hop-picker has ceased to go to the hop gardens. The women and children go and he stays at home on the "dole." The harvesting of the past summer was disastrously affected by the same influence. Men would work long enough to make them eligible for benefit and then find a means of being unemployed. The loosening of the test of honestly seeking employment has had deplorable results.'l