UNEMPLOYMENT DOLE

Southland Times, Issue 19124, 17 December 1923, Page 5

UNEMPLOYMENT DOLE

CURE WORSE THAN DISEASE ITS DEMORALISING EFFECTS GENERAL BOOTH’S CONDEMNATION. (By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright.) (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) LONDON, December 14. General Booth, in his annual report on the Salvation Army, says: It is impossible to imagine the moral decline and mischievous influence over all alike which springs from the unemployment dole. For once we see how the remedy may be far worse than the disease. “The curse of Britain to-day is the dole, and no nation, however wealthy, can afford to distribute £2,000,000 weekly in charity, because it demoralises the people,” said Mr H. E. Vaile on his return to Auckland from a trip abroad. “Many thousands who left school years ago at the age of 14 went on the dole, and never attempted to get work or learn a trade. Many thousands more have left their jobs to go on the dole. At the present time tens of thousands of domestics are wanted, but the people, prefer to get 15/- a week for doing nothing instead of working for their living. Unless it is stopped Great Britain will soon be a nation of paupers, for nobody will learn a trade. The British politicians know this, but they are just as terrified of the Labour Party as our own politicians. “Everyone knows that before things can possibly get back to normal one or two things must happen—either wages must be reduced or the wage-earners must do more work. At the moment the poor people are paying three times as much for coal as before the war, because the .miners are getting vastly increased wages and doing less work for them. To pay people to keep idle will not improve things, and I do not see how Protection and the consequent increased cost of living can enable us to compete with foreign countries. Lower cost of production is the only remedy, but it would take a man of Signor Mussolini’s strength to bring this about.”