RELIEF OF UNEMPLOYMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 June 1931, Page 6

RELIEF OF UNEMPLOYMENT.

Labour critics of the Unemployment Act and of the efforts of the Government to relieve unemployment are in the habit of maintaining that the chief weakness of the local system is that it doea not offer “sustenance” to those who cannot Hud work. In other words, they desire to see the introduction of an unemployment dole linanced by borrowing or by higher taxes. The reception of the New Zealand loan in London last week is an indication that borrowing for dole purposes may be ruled out and, were it introduced, that it would have to be financed by the unfortunate taxpayer here is certain. Were there the least chance of the dole solving the problem of unemployment the country might even face further' sacrifices, but the opposite is the proven fact. In Groat Britain the dole will have cost tire country £95,000,000 by the end of next mouth,, when it will be necessary to ask Parliament to sanction another huge raid upon the public purse. For this vast expenditure there are the following results: An ever increasing registration of unemployed, imposition upon the funds all over the country, and, worst of till, a, generation growing up that sees no shame in dependence upon public charity, and that is fast losing its desire ae well as its capacity for hard work, with the attendant pride of independence. No sane person could wish that such a system should find introduction here. Call it unemployment insurance or anything but charity, the fact remains that the dole puts a premium upon idleness and is sapping the self-reliance of a generation called upon to meet a sterner economic struggle than civilisation has hitherto experienced. Whatever failures may have been recorded here, that in Great Britain remains the gravest in the Empire and should serve as the most solemn warning against anything approaching a similar pernicious system.