DOLE IN ENGLAND

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17452, 29 December 1930, Page 11

DOLE IN ENGLAND

REGARDED AS NORMAL

PROFITABLE IDLENESS

Speaking of the dole in England Mr. L. S. Drake, chief traffic inspector of Wellington, who lias iust returned, said that it was difficult to know where England was heading financially in respect to the dole payments, which have reached staggering figures. “The marvel of it is,” said Mr. Drake, “that no one seems to worry about it—it seems to have become the accepted thing, and there it is. Nobody seems to be concerned on lio\v long the people with the money can pay out money to give to those without. The position, which is highly absurd, lias come to be regarded as normal. One laboring man told me that with allowances for his wife and family he got £2 14s a week, out of the dole, but when employed at his work lie only received £1 15s a week. Under fliese circumstances is it any wonder that men are doing their utmost to keep and remain unemployed? “Then apart from anything else there is the moral effect of getting something for nothing, and what it is going (0 do to English character. In another instance 1 heard of a man who had been offered work, but had turned it down as lie had made arrangements to go away for his summer holidays—-expenses defrayed bv the dole, of course.

“Is it*any reason under these conditions that the state of unemployment continues? You don’t hear much about it at Home. I have heard more about unemployment since I have been back here than I have in any country I have visited. Even in Australia, the people do not seem to be as disturbed as we are here. They actually boasted at having raised the £28.000.000 loan, and said that where that came from there was plenty-more, so why worry?”