UNEMPLOYMENT AT HOME

Taranaki Daily News, 18 January 1930, Page 15

UNEMPLOYMENT AT HOME

A HOPEFUL VIEW. NEWER AND BETTER METHODS. Auckland; Jan. 13. A hopeful view of the unemployment problem in Britain was expressed by Sir James Hamilton, chairman of directors of the Yorkshire Insurance Company, who arrived from Sydney by the Aorangi. Sir James is chairman of the York Labour Exchange and was a member of Lord Blanesburgh’s committee which conducted an exhaustive inquiry into tho working of the Unemployment Insurance Act. CONFIDENCE IN FUTURE. It had already been pointed out, Sir James said, that in spite of all the unemployment at present existing the number of persons employed in Britain was greater now than it was at tho outbreak of the Great War. He personally believed that the trouble would right itself in time, .although in the coal and cotton industries, which presented the most difficult problem, the process* worpd necessarily take long. Those two industries plainly could not recover their old prosperity in a short time unless they could regain all their old export markets. British coal, he believed, would yet make up a good deal of lost ground in overseas countries because of its special qualities. Lately cargoes had been shipped to very remote points, including ports, in Australia. The industry’s future also lay in the treatment of the coal for the extraction of oils and other products. So far as unemployment in general was concerned, it was too often assumed that trade depression was entirely to blame. His own experience went to show that in Britain changed conditions in many industries had caused employers to set a higher standard of work and thus led to tho unemployment of those who failed to come up to that standard. This went hand in hand with the introduction of newer and better methods. The workers thus laid on one side were mostly elderly men, and their chance of getting work was small. Hence they tended to °swcll the mass of permanently unemployed. UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE. Such men had been carried to some extent by unemployment insurance, but some other provision was needed. This, it hart been suggested, might take the form of an increased old-age pension. Speaking as an insurance man, Sir James said he°did not think that tho British Industrial Insurance scheme, as a scheme of that kind, could be much improved upon. It was quite true that largo advances had had to be made from the public funds to enable it to carry on. This meant that contributors Whose credit in the fund had disappeared through long unemployment, were mortgaging their future contributions. Many of tho older men, unfortunately, would never be able to repay tho advances in full. On the other-hand, the payment of benefits was very well supervised by local committees, on which workers were represented, and’ the imposition was reduced to a minimum. It was also true that in cases of destitution, if the scheme were not available tho unemployed would simply be thrown on rates or on some form of State relief that would have to be established for the purpose. In some South Wales parishes, .where almost the whole population was made up of miners and their families, little relief could be Obtained from the rates.