The Sun 92 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND THURSDAY, JULY 17, 1930 A POLL TAX FOR DOLES

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1026, 17 July 1930, Page 10

The Sun 92 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND THURSDAY, JULY 17, 1930 A POLL TAX FOR DOLES

ABOUT a year ago tlie United Government was valiant enough to stake its political fortune on the unemployment issue. It asserted intention and claimed ability to banish enforced idleness within five weeks. It arched the murky sky of politics with a gorgeous rainbow of promises. Today, tbe same Administration (its recent reconstruction made but little difference) is politically craven enough to stake the fortune of other people on a futile attempt to solve the problem of unemployment. There need not be much surprise about it. Nothing- better was to be expected from such a Ministry of mediocrities. Grapes cannot be gathered from thistles. With a nebulous, if pretentious, title of “Unemployment Bill,” a Government measure has been flung like a revolutionary bomb into the House of Representatives. Its purpose is to levy upon every male aged twenty years and upward a poll-tax of thirty shillings a year for the alleged relief *of the unemployed. The tax will be collected on the easy payment system. Certain exemptions are to be made, including university students, most of whom would be better able to afford the money than many a youth driven early to hard work. No discrimination has been made or even proposed as between the rich man and the poor man. Earners or recipients of from £2O to £2OO a week will be compelled to pay exactly tbe same amount for unemployment relief, as tbe youngest payer of the lax with only £2 a week. Apparently the unemployed, too, will have to suffer the levy, but they alone may secure the solace of a quick refund and more in the form of sustenance allowances. If they still are out of work when Ihe preposterous poll-tax comes into force they will get their contribution back with interest within a fortnight. Women, known to politicians as females, are excluded from the penalties and benefits of the stupid scheme. Indeed, the humanitarian Government evidently is not giving a thought to the hundreds of women who, for the past year or two, also have suffered the distress of unemployment. They have been overlooked with extra ordinary cal 1 ousn ess. Such is the best possible scheme available for a Government that battened on boasts and guarantees to end unemployment without the cost of an additional penny to the taxpayer. It represents a pathetic confession of administrative failure and the lack of constructive ability. The best that can be said about it, and, of course, will be said by partisan supporters of an Administration that never has deserved support, is that the purpose of the Bill will help to relieve the distressed unemployed in an organised way, and with resources filched from adult males. But the country should not overlook the ugly truth that the Government’s legislative proposal to sustain the unemployed in idleness means the beginning of the system of doles which has wrought so much mischief in other countries without reducing the number of idle youths and men. It also definitely means that unemployment, for the first time in this country, is to be made a sheltered industry. Thus there looms a demoralising national slackness which should make administrators and politicians bow their heads in humiliation and shame. Let it be conceded at once and with the most generous fairness that the foolish Government plans 1o provide relief work for the unemployed out of the money contributed by the payers of the poll-tax plus the State subsidy extracted in different ways from general taxpayers. The prospective method of accomplishment is based on hope rather than on certainty and common sense. An Unemployment Board is to be established together with labour exchanges atid, if necessary, commissions of inquiry. Members of the board, except the Minister of Labour, are to be paid reasonable allowances and travelling expenses. Precisely! And by the time the elaborate structure has been raised a large proportion of the poll-tax, estimated to yield £1,000,000 a year, will have been squandered on investigation and fussy futilities. A wise Parliament would throw the Bill out and follow up its wisdom by driving its sponsors after it.