UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 231, 30 September 1929, Page 6

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE.

The employers have a perfect right to ask that their views on unemployment insurance be considered by the Government, but it is a pity that the meeting of the Auckland Association last week took up so old-fashioned an attitude towards the idea. It is also regrettable that the meeting provided fresh illustrations of that ignorance of the English system to which we have frequently drawn attention. Mr. Spencer, the president of the Association, is reported to have said that the English law on the subject was a war measure. The first Act came into force in 1912. Another speaker said that unemployment insurance had ruined Britain. For a ruined country—exports last year £843,000,000—Britain displays astonishing vitality. The truth is the opposite. If there had been no such insurance the post-war slump might have ruined England by producing fatal discontent among the masses. It was contended at last week's meeting that a local insurance scheme would cripple industry. But industry has now to take its share of the cost of supporting the unemployed, and no one suggests that they should be allowed to starve. It is quite true that New Zealand conditions are different from those in Britain, and let us be thankful for it, but the arguments for the principle of the reform are the same everywhere. There .is need for unemployment insuranco in prosperous as well as in ' dull times.