WORK FOR THE WORKLESS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 6314, 14 September 1907, Page 6

WORK FOR THE WORKLESS

On July 9th last Mr Ramsay MacDonald introduced a Bill to the House of Commons dealing with the question of unemployment, a torin that connotes evils of a nature hardly understood and almost unknown in this country. The Bill yvas not expected to pass: in the nature of existing oircnmstances it conid not pass: pnd in due course the cable informed us that it had been thrown out. A copy of the measure has since come to hand, ■and a hasty perusal of it is sufficient to discover, the causes which led to its rejection. The objective of the framer is unexceptionable, being, in brief, the provision of means whereby the unemployed might get work in place of charity, free food to be given duly as an alternative to the failure of the local authorities (which the Bi}} \yould have created) to iind work. In a sense, therefore, it provided for a minimum wage, and also, as will be seen further on, fop making work, when available, compulsory upon those ah}e to work. The measure is necessarily largely taken up with machinery clauses, dealing with the constitution of the Unemployment Authority and jfß subsidiary committees, whose duties consist of determining and registering the unemployed, raising funds, either by local rates or Government grants, and drawing up schemes of work, upon which the unemployed might be engaged. The section relating to the execution of th© schemes lays it down that such schemes must be submitted to the Local Government Board, a Department of Government, which shall consider and report upon them to the Local Unemployment Authority, and shall also decide whether a local scheme shall be wholly or partly paid for from moneys voted hy Parliament, or whether it shall bo Wholly or partly paid for from moneys voted by the Local Unemployment Authority from the funds provided for special or general

county, county borough, borough and urban district purposes. The Local Government Board, after taking the advice of the Central Unemployment Committee, shall draw up a scheme that will admit of the employment of unemployed persons on work of national utility, such schemes to oe carried on when the Board of Trade returns snow that the unemployed persons exceed four per cent, of the employees reported upon as regards the state of the labour market, or when the registers of the authorities to be created show exceptional distress to exist. Suck are the main provisions, but there is one other, perhaps .the most remarkable of all, considering its origin, which deserves to be given in full. It constitutes subsection 3 of clause 6, and is as follows:—"When the Local Unemployment Authority are of opinion that unemployment in any case is owing to deliberate and habitual disinclination to work, they may report the case to a court of summary jurisdiction, and the court may issue an order which shall permit the Local Unemployment Authority to enforce control over the person named in the order for a period not exceeding six months, which period must be passed in the performance of reasonable work under the supervision or control of the Local Unemployment Authority.’’ Commenting upon this clause, Mr H. Russell Smart, m “The Labour Leader” (London), in an otherwise favourable notice, remarks: —“There is a fascinating possibility in this of the London County Council raiding the West End clubs, and compelling the gilded youth and frequenters there to do six months’ hard. I am afraid, however, this is at present outside the range of practical politics, and I confess I have al reluctance to apply compulsion to anyone beyond that which exists in nature, ,that if a man will not work neither shall he eat.” Mr Smart’s remark about the clause being outside the range of practical politics applies to the whole Bill. The time has not yet arrived when the State can recognise that it is its duty to provide work for all, though it does acknowledge its liability to the extent implied by what the friendly critic of the measure calls the minimum wage—the actual wherewithal to sustain life. The idea of making the State provide employment for all its people whose labour is not absorbed in private industry is not new—it is probably as old as the world—but no example of its satisfactory adoption or translation into action exists to give encouragement to those upon whom the responsibility for the trial would rest. The experiences of France are certainly not calculated to tempt the British statesmen. The unemployment of those willing to work is a great misfortune, from whatever point it may be regarded, but relief will have to be sought in many directions, and particularly through agrarian reform, before recourse is had to the remedy projected in Mr MacDonald’s Bill.