ABUSES OF THE DOLE

Taranaki Daily News, 23 December 1930, Page 9

ABUSES OF THE DOLE

EVIDENCE IN ENGLAND. . ' BREEDING OF PARASITES. 1 . . Gross abuses perpetrated under “the British dole system were recently dealt with in the. Morning Post. ’■ 1 Among other things the newspaper asserted that a man earning over £4 a week could get the dole. Promptly there were letters stating that this man could be multiplied hundreds of times'in one phase of industry. “In one newspaper transport service,” wrote a cor-i respondent, “there were dozen# of-men who drove vans on Saturday afternoons, and nights and on Sunday mornings whose object during the rest of the week, except for one night, when they worked as relief drivers, was to go racing. On these days they did not sign tfieir insurance- books. It often happened that when a rush occurred on these days the contractor'could not find a driver ‘from the house.’ The same correspondent asserted that he knew of full-time night workers in big Tendon markets who earned nearly twice £4. but drew the dole. There were packers who worked 24 hours at week-ends and relied on the dole for the rest of their earnings.” ; A Gravesend reader wrote: “Pacing the platform at Gravesend, I overheard this: ‘l’m going to Chatham to draw my dole. I have had the offer, of a job, but while I can get the dole, don’t see why I should bother. I’m not hard up for a pound; I’ve £5O in the bank.’” A lieutenant-colonel stated that persons'drawing pensions up to £6 a week could also secure the dole.

A Cardiff correspondent said it was doubtful if there was any branch of industry where the regulations governing the payment of the dole were more systematically exploited than that of coal-trimming in South Wales. Although working considerably less than 42! hours a week .the dock ' trimmers, whose wages came from a pool, drew £4 14s 7d a week for the first 16 weeks of the year and £4 ,6s lid' a week for the next 25. Neverthless, a great proportion of them had beep able to comply with the statutory regulations governing the payment of unemployed benefit. In one week ,752, or 48.5 per cent, had received the dole in addition to their wages from the pool. On the strength of being unemployed three days a we?k they had qualified for 15s a week and more. '

Another correspondent stated that every year wives with children went to the hopfields. The fathers remained at home drawing the dole, not only for themselves, but also for their, wife and children. Year after . year this abuse had been allowed to go on. At a tinplate works in South Wales three men drawing respectively in wages, £4 2s sd, £3 19s Sd and £2.lSs lOd, had also secured the dole. A Southampton man mentioned that it was the custom for liners to dock for four to ten days, the crews being automatically paid off and re-engaged the day before sailing. Numbers of .the men made it a practice to draw the dole during these days. , A Newport reader mentioned that boys of 18 could draw more under the dole system than usually by working. Even if dismissed for dishonesty they at once become eligible for the dole. At Islington and other areas of London, wrote another correspondent, thousands of married women were engaged in part-time work, such a stitching periodicals' in printing works, feeing that they average only two or three days a week they were able to receive the dole. Some married women had asked for employment on three days only so that they could draw from the fund. A flagrant case was that of a. woman whose husband and six sons were all working, but who, nevertheless, qualified for the dole by the fiction of parttime employment. Women who had married and did not want or intend to work had applied for their odd jobs, knowing that they would be refused. They, however, wer© able to get the dole.