BRITAIN’S UNEMPLOYED.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 18762, 29 December 1930, Page 2

BRITAIN’S UNEMPLOYED.

ASPECT OF “DOLE” SYSTEM. Some aspects of the British “dole” system are dealt within an article in the journal “John Bull” by Mr A. G. Gardiner. He writes: “The Post-master-General said the other night that even a Government of Archangels could not have saved the country from the desperate straits into which it has fallen. I know nothing and I think Mr Lees Smith knows nothing of the political capacity of archangels. What is unfortunately clear to everybody is that the political capacity of the Macdonald Government has proved disastrously unequal to its task. Tried by the acid test of unemployment its failure is catastrophe. Let us look at a few facts. “The host of the unemployed was increased last week by 80,000. It amounts now to nearly two and aquarter millions. Since Mr Macdonald came into office a little more than a year ago, there has been an addition of a million—in other words the unemployed have nearly doubled under the Labour Administration.

“By general consent we have not yet touched the bottom. It is openly predicted, even by members of the Government, that there will be three million unemployed before Christmas, that before the winter is over the total may be in the neighbourhood of four millions. Consider the financial consequences of this. A Collosal Drain.

“The unemployment insurance fund is insolvent. In spite of the increased replenishments it is borrowing from the Exchequer at the rate of £60,000 a week, or 31 millions a year. It is in debt to the State already to the extent of over £50,000.000. Should the gloomy estimate of this winter be fulfilled the fund will be borrowing at the rate of £80,000.000 a year. If this colossal drain continues it is not only the insurance fund that will be bankrupt. The State itself will be bankrupt. And remember that with this mountainous and increasing burden our capacity to bear it is diminishing. The revenue returns, in spite of increased taxation, are falling. They must continue to fall. “We are creating a new ‘rentier’ class, largely among the young a class which is coming to look upon unemployment as its career and upon the State as the source of its supplies. It contributes nothing to the fund from which it draws and nothing to the natural productiveness which is the ultimate source of its income. It is a parasite upon labour. The employed pay into the fund and the professional unemployed draw out. Some of the Abuses.

“I do not suggest that the uncovenanted benefit could be avoided, say, in the circumstances Lancashire. But the lengths to which it has gone and the abuses associated with it are flagrant and scandalous. The herring girls from the North finish their seasonal job and go back on the ‘dole.’ Married women are discovering that by taking occasional work they can draw the benefit while at home, no matter if their husbands are in good work.

“Boys leave their jobs because it pays the family better for them to be at home on the ‘dole.’ The male hop-picker has ceased to go to the hop-gardens. The women and children go and he stays at home on the ‘dole.’ The harvesting of the past summer was disastrous affected by the same Influence. Men would work long enough to make them eligible for benefit and then find a means of being unemployed. The loosening of the test of honestly seeking employment has had deplorable results.”