UNEMPLOYMENT INQUIRIES

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 90, 13 October 1934, Page 8

UNEMPLOYMENT INQUIRIES

Labour members of the House of Representatives wrathfully condemned as "spying" the inquiries made by some inspectors of the Unemployment Board. We cannot judge individual cases, but the Minister has promised to investigate any complaints of harshness. Provided the inquiries are made by capable inspectors in a reasonable way we see no objection to them, and every reason for continuing the investigation. Unemployment funds are provided for the relief of the unemployed, according to their need, and it is right that their need should be investigated. It is fair, not only to the taxpayers, but to the recipients of relief pay, that impositions should be guarded against. Of course, the inquiry may be annoying;'so are all inquiries into private affairs. Yet these are made by Customs officers, income-tax inspectors, and other officials, and the reasonable, man admits that they are necessary. Certainly the law should not be harshly administered. We have often urged that, where a relief worker is trying to help himself by casual earnings, his efforts should be encouraged. The board claims that its instructions are for cases to be treated on their merits within certain limits, and we think these limits should be made more generous where it is possible. Also . the board should put down firmly any tendency it may discover for inspectors to approach workers or their wives as if they were suspected of fraud. Where there is concealment or refusal to give information -the investigation must certainly be pursued; but it should begin with the sympathetic assumption which is fully warranted in all but a few cases that the relief workers are honest and respectable people, to be treated as such.