The Dominion SATURDAY, MAY 2, 1925. A DEMORALISING DOLE

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 181, 2 May 1925, Page 6

The Dominion SATURDAY, MAY 2, 1925. A DEMORALISING DOLE

By referring incidentally, in the course of the British Budget debate, to “the danger of workers learning how to qualify for unemployment insurance,” Mr. Winston Churchill seems to have started a storm in a teacup. The reference mentioned, we are told to-day, led to such an angry and sustained outburst from the Labour benches that Mr. Churchill and those members of the Ministerial party who were present ultimately left the House. ■ On the facts disclosed, it would appear that this theatrical demonstration by the Labour Party was but another illustration of an unwillingness to face plain facts. Of the million and a quarter British workers who are in' receipt of unemployment insurance; benefits, a large proportion doubtless are honestly unable to obtain wouk. Evidence is available from various quarters, however, that unemployment benefits are being obtained by many people who are not morally entitled to them. The position reached under what is colloquially known as the “dole” system was broadly summed up not long ago by the London Observer:— The dole is a demoralising agent; there is no more pernicious influence than subsidised idleness, especially as affecting the younger' people who ought either to be at - some kind of occupation or under some sort of instruction. , Specific evidence of the way in which the refusal of work is encouraged under the dole system was given recently by a South Wales mining correspondent of the Morning Post. This writer quotes one miner, a married man with two children, as expressing a fervent hope that there would be no work next day (a Saturday) at the colliery at which Re was employed. The miner’s reason was that he had already worked three shifts that week, and if he worked another would forfeit his claim to the dole. Working on four days, he would have received £2 2s. Bd. Working only on three days, he received in wages and dole £2 ss. 6d.(i Another lower-paid colliery employee who worked on only three days got £1 17s. BJd. in wages and unemployment benefits as compared with the wages of £l, 12s. 3d. he would have received for four days’ work. Other curious examples are mentioned. A farmer, not eligible in that capacity for the dole, entered colliery employment. His colliery closed down, and now, according to the correspondent, the farmer draws the dole as an unemployed miner, and at the same time is busy in working a twenty-acre farm. A very important point made by the ..same correspondent is that under amending legislation brought down last year by the MacDonald Government all miners or other workers Who are now on the dole will continue to receive it should their industries be paralysed by' strikes. No doubt full use will be made of this provision by the extremists who are threatening to bring the coal industry to a standstill in July next. v ' In a statement which may be exaggerated, but certainly has some foundation, the Morning Post declared that all over Great Britain men and women are refusing work for .which the wages offered are not substantially higher than the scale of unemployment benefit. < In objecting to any reference to this state of affairs, British Labour members arc rendering poor service to the wage-earners whom they profess particularly to represent. It is casting, no slur, but .merely facing facts, to recognise that under such conditions as the dole system has brought into existence there is bound to be a\ more ,or less widespread evasion of work. In the extent to which this evil obtains it is burdening working wage-earners as much as any section of the community. , A swollen dole system is one cause of high taxation, and this last in its turn is one of the heaviest handicaps under which British > industries labour in competing with the foreigner in their home market and abroad. Abuses o£ the dole system help to account for shipbuilding and other orders, going abroad that might have been executed in Britain. 1 1 ' The answer to such a demonstration as Labour members have just made in the House of Commons is that it is supremely in the interests of British wage-earners that abuses of the system of unemployment insurance should be repressed. Something would thus be done to lighten the almost crushing burdens under which British industries are at present staggering, and also to point to, the real remedy for what is unsatisfactory in British industrial and social conditions. ■ That remedy undoubtedly is the industrial peace and unhampered co-operation between employers and employed to increase the volume of national production, for which', the British Prime Minister lias so earnestly and eloquently appealed.