MORE DOLE MONEY

Hokitika Guardian, 10 August 1931, Page 2

MORE DOLE MONEY

GOVERNMENT’S NEW PLAN

MR BALDWIN’S WARNING.

LONDON, June 25

At the present time the Unemployment Fund is mining into debt at the rate of over £1,000,000 a week. Where as the majority of the Royal Commission would have made the fund balance by reducing expenditure, the Government proposes to a.low the mounting deficit to continue virtually unchecked and to meet the situation by their cus tomary expedient of borrowing. Miss Bendfield (Minister of Labour) moved a resolution in committee ap proving c»f tlie Unemployment Insurance Fund from £90,000,090 to £115,000,000, and the extension of the per iod of transitional benefit, by a further six months.

Dealing with the present financial position of the -'lnsurance Fund, she said that the outstanding debt on June 15 was £85,870,000, and the borrowing powers would be exhausted by July -8 or 9.

With an average of 2,500,000 on the live register, and assuming that the cost of transitional benefit remained approximately as at present, and that the conditions for the receipt of benefit were unchanged, the borrowing pow era now asked for would last until June 1932. On'ft live register of 2,750,000 they would last till November 1081, and on a live register of 3.000,000 they would last till October 1931. Giving the figure of 2,603,000 ns th" total now on the live register, 'Miss BondfieU] said that this tjid pot m e ™ that the number of people were wholly and permanently- ’ unemployed. A sample analysis taken in February last showed that 645,000, or 36.2 per-cent, of the men and 222,000, or 38.9 per cent of the women had been on the register for not more than four weeks, and that in addition 47.7 per cent, of tlie men and 38 per cent, of the women had been on the register for more than four weeks, but not more than weeks. The mining industry accounted for 314,000 unemployed, the textile in dustry for 431,000 and engineering and shipbuilding for 319,000 or 12, 18 and 16 per cent, of the total unemployed. DEM OCR ACY ENTER IENCED. Mr Baldwin (Leader of the Oppovsition) said that although the question at issue involved 1000 details of administration of unemployment benefit, it was also a question of the credit of the country. “The Government are very largely responsible for the position in which we find ourselves, quite apart from the growth of unemployment,” he contin ued. “The increase of unemployment is a very great c 1 * ->■ - Uu* «<• must not forget that at a tun,- < >r• -inary prudence would have sa'd- ‘ v o‘ they increased the rates of botiti.ii. without any corresponding increase in contributions and relaxed conditions, and they liaye not up to now devised any means of reducing this indebtedness and preventing the borrowing.—(Conservative cheers). .That is the principle charge we make against the Government. It is quite clear that tin's kind of financ cnnnpt go on without any security eith er to tlie domestic or to the internat ionaj financial position of the country. —(Conservative cheers), “Finance hag always been the Achilles heel of n democracy. The reason are that a large democratic electoral cannot have on these difficult and com plicated subjects the experience which qualifies them to judge what may be perilous or safe in the method of con ducting the national finance, and, therefore they are dependent upon the lion est and true statements of facts, and of those dangers from those whose judgment they respect,” DESPERATE REMEDIES. Colonel Wedgwood (Soc., Newcastleunder Lyrne) said we had reached the breaking point in financial matters, and if something had to go, it was better that the currency should go, and a policy of inflation be adopted. Costs must come down or prices must g' up, and the latter seemed to be tlr course that would have to be adopted. Speaking of what he described a” “the domination of the banks and money lenders over the policy of the coun try,” he said that those who lent mon ey must he invited tp share the burden of the crisis that was upon us. Some thing must be dope to lighten the burden of debt that was falling on the people. Our manufacturers had to compete with people abroad who had. written off their debts and who were hound to cut us out of the trade of the wor’d until we had gone through the mill, We could not make ends meet ftt the present value of the £. “We shall,” he said, “have to get rid of something of our national, municipal, and private debts in order to give the country a chance of starting again on equa 1 terms with other countries and take advantages of any improvement in trade that may come hereafter as a result of the Hoover proposals.” AMENDMENT REJECTED. Mr J. H. Thomas; retrying to th? debate, admitted that there were abuses which must be remedied, but in remedying abuses they must not do injustice to hundreds of thousands of other people. (Socialist cheers). It was epsy to sneer at the dole and the people receiving 'it. but. he often asked himself what would be tin- position of this country if it were jict for the.