THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1931. THE “DOLE” IN BRITAIN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21264, 19 February 1931, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1931. THE “DOLE” IN BRITAIN.

To the demands that are being made on behalf of the Unemployment Insurance Fund in Great Britain there is no end. Authority to borrow , another £20,000,000 has been applied for and granted by the House of Commons. It is admitted that the Fund is now carrying a debt of £67,000,000, and that the new loan will be exhausted by July next. It is only a little more than two months since the last addition to the borrowing power of the Fund, which was then raised by £10,000,000 to the limit of £70,000,000, from which it now leaps to £90,000,000. In December last the total amount of ordinary benefit and interest paid out of the fund and the “transitional” benefit—which is really pure relief—for which the State has now assumed responsibility, together with- cost of administration, represented a sum of £107,000,000. Of this £30,000,000 came from the contributions of industry, £37,000,000 direct from the taxpayers, and £40,000,000 from borrowing on the taxpayers’ credit. The Unemployment Insurance Fund follows directly in the tradition of the daughters of the horse-leech with their cry of “ Give, give! ” It bears no resemblance to a solvent and properly balanced insurance system. In evidence brought before the Royal Commission which was set up recently to investigate the scheme the searchlight has been thrown afresh upon the exploitation of unemployment insurance. No less an authority than the assistant .•principal secretary to the Ministry of Labour testified that men draw wages from subsidiary employment and unemployment benefit at the same time, that piece-workers crowd their work into three days in order to obtain benefit, and that in some industries it has become a settled practice to arrange that large numbers of workpeople shall be regularly supported in part by the Unemployment Fund. The same witness pointed out how easy it was for a family to make the dole its mainstay, the man and wife working at odd jobs in such a way that the chief source of income was not interfered With. The man is technically unemployed, it may be added, if his odd jobs do not bring in more than £1 a week, and, thus supplemented, the dole will provide a comfortable livelihood, and there is no encouragement whatever for the man to look for regular employment. The systematic abuse of unemployment benefit in some •trades is apparently a serious evil, and The Daily Telegraph suggests that in • certain eases there is something suspiciously like collusion between masters and men in using the benefit to increase real wages. To the docklabourer, whose work is naturally intermittent, unemployment benefit is represented as being a windfall, since he works and draws his dole as well. In Liverpool, it is stated, eight times the amount of employers’ and men’s contributions is paid out of the Unemployment Insurance Fund. The General Council of the Trades Union Congress has betrayed uneasiness over the appointment of a Royal Commission to investigate the position under the Fund, and the evidence that is coming forward is no doubt distasteful to it. Presumably its attitude is

generally one of “ Hands Off the Dole.” The rank and file of the Socialist Party are not likely to admit that there is anything wrong with the Unemployment Insurance Fund, except, as The Times suggests, “ the remnants of the principle of insurance and the smallness of the amounts paid in benefit or relief to the unemployed.” The Royal Commission, whatever its findings and whatever their value, represents a poor consolation to the country for the huge bill of unproductive expenditure under the unemployment insurance scheme. Even this cost, \particularly burdensome at a time when a big Budget deficit is in prospect, is not the worst feature of the position, though the Observer is probably thoroughly justified in declaring that the first essential of sound financial reform is to throw nearly 400,000 persons off the dole and to relegate them to plain out-door relief on reduced terms of subsidy. There is the question of the pernicious influence of the dole, its effect in discouraging energy and in the breeding of a class which is quite pleased to dispense with work and exertion if it can live comfortably in idleness. The worst aspect of the manner in which the Unemployment Insurance scheme has been developed is seen in the value which, through it, attaches to idleness. The fact that sustenance —to use the terra adopted in the New Zealand Unemployment Act —is afforded without the condition of any work in return is necessarily demoralising to the recipient, and it is no marvel that Mr Forbes should have come back from the Imperial Conference with a determination to resist the introduction of a sustenance allowance without work in this country, or to keep clear of it as long as possible.