The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1929 UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 759, 4 September 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1929 UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE

THERE will be some praise for the Ministerial announcement in the House of Representatives last evening that “the United Government is in earnest in its effort to relieve the unemployment position and intends to bring in an unemployment insurance scheme next session.” This information may soothe the hundreds of men who still are out of work, though it will not take the edge off their misery for a long time yet. And incidentally the prospective scheme should win over finally 7 and appreciatively the Labour wing of the Opposition to the support of the Government. Thus, in spite of much talk and rumour about early dissolution and an emergency general election, it is quite clear that neither the present Ministry nor any members of the three squabbling parties in Parliament will require unemployment relief for themselves this year or the next. But praise of the Government must remain qualified and restrained until the details of the projected scheme of unemployment insurance have been disclosed. So far, the proposal is as nebulous, though also as attractive, as the Milky Way in the heavens. The Minister of Justice was content with indicating the intention of the Government to smother unemployment in good time or failing that desired, but dubious result, to prop up wasteful and miserable idleness with benefits from a national insurance fund for the relief of the insured unemployed. In the meantime, however, the Government does not possess sufficient material for an early drafting of an essential Bill. It must acquire statistical information. This should not be a difficult or protracted task for the simple reason that the Government merely intends to imitate the legislative expedients and experiments of other harassed Governments and industrially-depressed States. Several countries already have given national unemployment insurance a thorough trial, only to learn inevitably that even the best results of the widest practice of such relief have not eliminated the economic fact that a great proportion of the vast expenditure always involved is and must he non-productive, contributing very little, indeed, toward securing a permanent cure for chronic or even sporadic unemployment. Whatever else may he said about unemployment insurance (and a great deal can be said in favour of it), every system constitutes a heavy burden on capital and industry, representing in the aggregate a diminished purchasing power and ability to provide more and new work. It is interesting to note Mr. Wilford’s frank confession that he has become converted and, in a new spirit of political humanitarianism, has accepted the principle of unemployment insurance as worthy of adoption and practice. Until he made an instructive trip to England last year he had regarded the British scheme as “an unholy thing.” The Conservative Ministry of Labour there, however, provided him with some illuminating figures which showed that, instead of the relief given being a dole, it was actually the people’s own insurance. And Mr. Wilford also learnt in London that abuse of the system was not widespread, but was confined to a small percentage of cases. The Minister’s lesson was true as far as it went, but the whole truth would have involved au explanation of the fact that the earlier abuse of that which he looked upon as something unholy had been eliminated by an amending enactment arising out of the Blanesburgh Committee’s thorough investigation of a preliminarily bad scheme. In addition to Great Britain’s expenditure of nearly £500,000,000 on unemployment relief, including £407,000,000 from the insurance fund—a sum which, had it been spent on new works, would have altered the whole state of the Kingdom and made beneficial use of the great latent industrial power among a million unemployed—the British nation also spends over £49,000,000 a year on the relief of pauperism. Nothing is more desirable in any country than that the systems of unemployment relief and unemployment insurance should be placed on a sound economic basis and raised above political partisanship. There are many expensive weaknesses in the best systems. If the Government intends to introduce a much better scheme than Great Britain’s, it will have to be careful about estimating its cost. It is not an enterprise into which politicians should rush with enthusiastic impulsiveness.

TRAMS AND TRAFFIC

IN a commendable spirit of complaisance the Transport Board has accepted the advice tendered to it from many quarters that jacks should be carried on tramears, and that the centrepoles should be recognised as the danger that they undoubtedly are. The centre-poles are to be removed only by degrees; but they are to be painted white to give them better visibility at night, and if, even with these safeguards, there should be a repetition of some recent accidents, people pinned in the wreckage of tram or motor-car will not have to wait in possible agony while a jack is brought from a station perhaps a quarter of a mile away. Although agreeing to the change, the Transport Board itself still cherishes the conviction that it is unnecessary. Collisions with centre-poles will continue to occur, and though some of them may be due to carelessness on the part of motorists, there is still some responsibility on a system which permits a moment’s inattentiveness to have such disastrous results. The problem is associated with the larger question of traffic congestion in the busier streets of the City. Queen Street is rapidly reaching a state when at rush hours it is positively a trial to handle a ear there. The discomfort is not exclusive to the motorist. With lines of motors and lines of trams to avoid, the pedestrian, too, has to be wary in Queen Street. Ultimately some heroic steps will have to be taken to relieve the congestion, and the traffic and transport authorities must view those steps as a future responsibility that in the meantime warrants the deepest study. Many are confident that the primary solution to Queen Street congestion is the removal of the trams, presumably to Albert Street, but to the general shopping public this will appeal as a drastic measure. A more practicable remedy would be the introduction of one-way traffic, which has been adopted in Sydney with success. Before any such innovation can be contemplated the proposed fry-pass thoroughfare along Borne Street, High Street, and on through the old post office site to Fort Street, Commerce Street, and so to Quay Street, must be completed along its whole length. With Albert Street, this would give two handy return routes if Queen Street were set apart for down traffic only. Failing the introduction of one-way traffic, or the elimination of the tramlines, something should be done about regulating the manner in which cars park and turn in Queen Street. Perhaps because the deficiencies of the general parking arrangements are realised, little is done now to enforce the time-limits laid down in the by-laws. The practice of turning in Queen Street is one which should be altogether forbidden. It is not countenanced in the busier streets of .towns considerably smaller than Auckland. Heavy traffic, too. should be banished from a street which is so essentially a shopping thoroughfare as Queen Street; but that cannot in fairness be done until the long-deferred High Street by-pass is tackled.