UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE

Hokitika Guardian, 1 August 1928, Page 1

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE

EXPERIENCE IN BRITAIN. AUCKLAND, J'uly 30. An excellent brief statement of the arguments for and against unemployment insurance is contained in a letter sent by the London Chamber of Commerce in reply to questions put by tlie Auckland Chamber. The letter readsyas follows : '■ You ask whether, viewing the unemployment insurance scheme in its broadest national aspects, it lias been advantageous. It lias to be borne in niiml that England had some very special problems to solve peculiar to herself, and that the unemployment insurance scheme has to be judged in the light of these problems and with an eye to the evils which might have befallen had there not been such a scheme. It would not, therefore, he wise for New Zealand to argue too closely from an analogy with this country. Looked at from the broadest national point of view there are certain advantages and disadvantages, some of which would lie applicable in the case of New Zealand and others would iiot.

(1) “ The scheme removes from the mind of the worker much of the anxiety for the morrOw which must otherwise exist.

(2) “In the event of his being out of work his wife and children do not suffer to the same degree, il at all, and this must ultimately he reflected in the increased health of future generations.

(3) “The intense bitterness which forms so fertile a ground for revolutionary doctrine in the mind of the man who through no fault of his own finds himself driven into the workhouse is removed. ’‘These are all advantages which from the national point of view should not he under-estimated. On the other hand drawbacks are not inconsiderable:— .

(1) “It is essential that a small and thickly populated country like Great Britain should emigrate a percentage of her population annually, and maintenance hy the State tends to check migration.

(2) li Benefits which are out of proportion to tlie premium paid encourage a spirit of dependence upon the State and weaken a man’s sense of his dependence upon his own efforts, a mental attitude which no virile nation should wish to encourage in’its citizens.

(3 1 “The ever rising cost of the scheme tends to become a more and more serious burden upon industry in its cofiijietition with the manufacturers of other nations, in whose costs of production tin's item does iiot figure. (4) “There will always he a percentage in any community who will do a minimum of work consistent with continued existence, and this percentage do only that amount of work which qualifies them for the benefit, and enables them to supplement it sufficiently to attain their very low standard of

living. “You ask for an expression of com mercial opinion as to whether the scheme has, on the whole, been beneficial in this country. There is, I think, considerable divergence of opinion in accordance with the varying weight which is given hy different individuals to the pros and cons set out above. 1 think, however, that there would be a majority verdict in favour of the scheme as it existed before 1921, a scheme designed to supplement a man’s own savings, hut that the movement since that date toward acceptance of the principle of work or maintenance carries within' it the seed of its own destruction.”