THE MEANS TEST

Hokitika Guardian, 27 October 1932, Page 6

THE MEANS TEST

DISCUSSION >IN THE: COMMONS. i Vif'. ,r" *r •• —— r trl V/' 1 SOCIA L. ECONOMIES CRST IC IS E D I " ( . 1 (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, October 25. i When the Labour Party, moved a motion of csnsure on the Government in the House of Commons, the Leader, ‘Mr Geo. Lansbury, criticised economies. that had been affected in the social services, and also the Government’s: imposition' of a -means” test, on., that . section ef the unemployed whose right, to any'.benefit under the Insurance Act hrd expired. ■.The Priifie stated that the irifcY&tse iri’Hlhe number of un- ' employed,. “decelerated. He recalled that'a means test was institut ed when the Labour Government, including members of the Opposition, was in power. The Government had no intention of making a clean sweep of the means test administration. This tpst had to be imposed, b.ut there migh J j be disability questions to be co T '~ ; 'iered, and also the question as to how far thrift and savings had to. be taken into account. T e unemploymen problem was one not merely of sympathy, but one of business and, finance, and of devising ways of providing worlf'. |To do that they had to straighten out 'such problems as. those left by. the financial clauses of the Versailles Treaty’, and to go on applying the ,Lausanne Agreement, and get an international agreement at. the World Economic Conference—to go in ! effect to the root of the unemployment, problem. ."

Sir H. Samuel, speak/ng for the Freq Tracfe Liberals, sa’d that they wore definitely-of the opinion t)iat the . mcc ; ns ;tes,fc couldl not, and ougfit, not toi be. abolished;