COUNTRY NOTEBOOK

Otago Witness, Issue 3995, 7 October 1930, Page 64

COUNTRY NOTEBOOK

By

MURIHIKU.

(Special fob the Otago Witness.)

The writer of this column does not pretend to be infallible! Neither does he resent criticism! And, further, he does not even pretend to be original! Sometimes he has ideas that may not be expressed conventionally—but, after all, this column started as a “ Country Notebook,” and in a notebook one records anything of value, original sometimes, sometimes cribbed from the experience of others.

The foregoing is apropos of a letter I have received from a somewhat irrate correspondent who suggests that I am neither original nor strictly truthful in my comments on the “ dole ” paid in Great Britain. He writes:—

“ You should know that it is an insurance paid for by the man . . . it is not a dole—he is entitled to it . . . The man pays one-third, the employer one-third, and the State onethird.”

But the plain fact is that the unemployment insurance scheme has broken down. Miss Bondfield, the Minister of Labour, is continually asking for millions of pounds additional in order to meet the payments. These millions do not come from “ the man ” —the Government has to find them.

And at the risk of readers becoming annoyed with another dose of actual cases showing the demoralising effect of the dole at Home, here are some more examples. This is not original on my part either. The paragraphs are taken from the London Daily Mail. With the National Unemployment Fund another £10,000,000 in debt, and the prospect of further borrowing necessary in a few- months, inquiries have been made by Daily Mail reporters on the abuse of the dole. Here are four examples : — In one case a man has been chargeable to the guardians, on and off, since 1922. Altogether he has received £459 in out relief. In 1921 he lost a good job through a dispute with his employers and is reported to have done no regular work since. His four children were born while he was in receipt of poor relief. Last March he came into unemployment benefit under the new Act, receiving 34s a week. A second case: A man has a record of 17 weeks’ work in five years. His wife, at the end of her patience, reported to the relieving officer: “He does not trouble to look for work. He has misused the relief money and at times left home.” This man is now getting 32s—and no questions asked —from the Unemployment Fund. A third case is that of a man who had a relief record under the guardians dating from 1923. In 1927 he was convicted of being drunk while in charge of a motor car, and his license was suspended. When he has been drunk his wife has had to lock herself and her children away from him. To-day he has the dole—3os a week. A. fourth man is now getting £2 a week from the Unemployment Fund, and has “ relief ” record dating back to 1926. It has not been continuous, but has breaks during which his wife worked to keep the home together while he looked after the baby. The relieving officer acquainted with this case says that in his opinion the man will now “go on for ever,” adding: “If he went for a job I don’t suppose anyone would take him.” ¥ *

If my critical friend would keep in touch with events at Home, he would find that what once was wrongly called a “ dole ” is, in 1930, really a’“ dole.”

So when it is reported that “ the Unemployment Bill-was reported back to the Lower House amidst applause from the Labour and Government benches,” I repeat that we have now reached the stage when it is possible for a married man with four children to get almost as much for not working as he could get in many districts by working. And a single man, living on his father and mother, can get 25s per week for doing nothing—and that will keep the young scamp in cigarettes and picture money! I repeat that this is most dangerous legislation, and New Zealand will very soon be sorry that the legislation came, back from the Upper House “ ’midst applause.”

Now in regard to my rather serappy note last week in which I referred to the experiences in France in 1848, I printed the paragraph as a stimulant to thought and research. There seems to be little new under the sun. Let us take an independent historical record. An excellent book is “ Europe in the Nineteenth Century,” by A. J. Grant, professor of history in the University of Leeds, and Dr Harold Temperly, reader in modern history in the University of •Cambridge. Herein we shall find an eighty-year-old example of a promise that every able-bodied man would be given work by the Crovernnient of the day. The story may be printed in short, pertinent extracts. (Louis Blanc and Saint Simon were two of the prominent Socialist characters in the movement.)

“ Universal suffrage was declared • . . Louis Blanc had also, in appearance at least, gained a great victory for his favourite idea. He had declared to a body of petitioners that the Government undertook to guarantee to all Frenchmen sufficient work to support life, and a decree at once declared the establishment of ‘ Nationnal Workshops.’ This last was a decision of the utmost importance for, the future of the Republic.”

Private, enterprise was to be swept away without violence! But violence" did come into the scheme, as we shall see:—

“ The task before the world, and especially before France, was to build up a new order . . . Social industry was to take the place of private, enterprise, but the new order was to, be substituted for the old without violence or confiscation . . . He (Saint Simon) believed that if men were left to organise themselves freely they would fall into ‘ natural ’ groups, with special aptitudes and likings for different occupations, and thus the necessary work of the world would be performed freely, joyfully, and efficiently.” “The task before mankind now was, to organise life on a basis of association and fraternity . . . All that is necessary is to provide workmen with money, form a co-operative workshop, and success will come inevi-

tably.” Public opinion took very little notice of all the high ideals, but seized definitcly. on one point—and even misrepresented that—“ the right to work.” “We will work and live, or we will fight and die ” became the slogan of the crowd. We now read how men flocked in from the country to the towns, and the unemployment figures of 1848 jumped up—just as ours did in 1929, when the late Prime Minister promised everybody work “in five weeks’ time.”

“ The promise of constant work at a fair wage drew to the workshops all the casual labour of Paris, and soon great numbers from the provinces as well. In two months the numbers of those who drew a wage—we cannot say who worked—rose from 25,000 tq 06,000. Then only tw.o days’ work was provided each week; on the other days the unemployed received a dole (called “un salaire d’inactivite ”) of one franc per day ... on every ground, economic or moral, the scheme was a failure.”

The workshops were not closed with: out a struggle, for the Socialists were well organised:—'

“ An inquiry was held, and the workshops were declared closed on June 22, A mass of misery was thrown on the streets of Paris without resource or hope. But the Socialist Party had its organisation, its clubs and its news? papers, and it took up the challenge. Barricades were drawn across the narrow and tortuous streets of Paris, The Assembly was declared dissolved, and the workshops re-established. It was civil war . . . There were four days of desperate fighting, during which each side charged the other with treason and massacre.”

So the attempt to provide everyone with work ended in disaster and blood? shed. We will all hope that our New Zealand experiments along the lines of q “ dole ” will result in a happier condition of affairs than developed in France in 1848 and in Great Britain to-day.