THE BRITISH DOLE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 5051, 12 November 1926, Page 4

THE BRITISH DOLE.

FACTS FROM THE REPORT. FEW FRAUDULENT RECIPIENTSThe report of the Ministry of Labour regarding the unemployment dole in Britain sets forth as, follows : The average weekly number of persons drawing unemployment benefit during the year was 977,600, and the average weekly payment was 18s, 2d a head. The total amount of “dole” paid, out was £45,814,762. The average monthly percentage of persons unemployed was, 11.3, as compared with 10.3 in 1924. The average number of servant girls registered as unemployed during 1925 was 349,274. “While progress in re-creating an interest among industrial workers in the opportunities of domestic service is bound to be slow,” says the report, “progress is being made, and the, exchanges, are winning more extended recognition as agencies for ordinary domestic placing.” ELIMINATION OF FRAUD. The “dole” figures have been eagerly scanned, says an English contemporary. Perhaps the biggest surprise in view of the great shortage is, the •fact that over SOOfOOO domestic servants cannot obtain work, for thoussands off homes find it difficult to gW help of this kind, and the average housewife in particular will be amazed at this, revelation. But the bigger question as to fraudulent people on the dole, appears well on the way to solution.

“These are huge figures, and againsthem we may set the fr-ict that the number df people convicted of obtaining, or trying to obtain, benefit by fraud was less than 2000. But apart from prosecutions for fraud, there; is. a .triple machinery for examining whether the recipients of benefit are in Tact rightly entitled to it,” says the Daily Chronicle. “The first special scrutiny is conducted in .the local offices, and through it 38,900 cases were disallowed benefit —©.bout one in 17 of those scrutinised. The next check is special examination by divisional officers; it discovered 2500 wrong cases, otr about one in 29 of those examined. The final check is, azspecial inquiry by centrally employed officers, dispatched .to selected centre#. It resulted in disallowing 8903 cases out of about 52,000' specially chosen for close inquiry. We must infer that, contrary td widespread belief, any prolonged receipt of the ‘dole’ by persons not legally entitled to it is rea,lly very rare. On the whole, it seems reasonable to accept this inference,. Popular beliefs on such a subject easily run to exaggeration. People who know a single particular case of gross parasitism at their local Labour Exchange are apt to argue

from it hat abuses flourish wholesale It is perfectly true that such cases exist, and may be known to a large

number df persons without being brought to the attention of the officials ; but they.ai’e the rates exception#, not the common rule.” WORKING AS INTENDED. “We are constantly hearing of members of an ingenious family of shirkers eking out the ‘dole’ with poorrelief, and between its different members accumulates, a sufficient sum. to live on in ‘idleness and luxury’; but the crude fact remains that! for the vast majority of individuals life on the ‘dole.’ means life ojn 18s 6d a we,ek, ajid the wide disproportion between the number of average weekly payments and the number of ‘registrations’ shows that the vast majority of them get off the ‘dole’ as quickly as they can, when work offer#, and only go back to it when there is a genuine failure of work,” writes Mr J. A. Spender in the Westminster Gazette. “The ‘dole,’ in fact, is acting as it was intended to act, as a genuine and hejpful insurance, and its supposed demoralising effects aye largely a figment. To the twelve and three-quarter millions, of people registered it is a stand-by in trouble, and gives them an assurance that, the worst will not happen tw them, but it is certainly not a lure to te,mpt them fropi work. It must be added that what is called the ‘dole’ is almost wholly contributed by industry itself, tVnd from the contributions of workmen as, well as of employers. The amount of benefit paid out last year was about £46,000,000, and the amount to which the. fund is in debt to the State at the end of a long period of lean years is less than £8,000,000. Had this, Tonin of insurance been started in normal times, instead of at the beginning of a long and steep depression it would certainly have been solvent freta the beginning, and there is every ground to hope that as normal times lieturn it will wipe off its debt and accumulate a surplus,. In any case, we may be thankful that. it. was started just in these times, for it has shjved an enormous amount off suffering, and is carrying usi through a hard time at comparatively little cost to the taxpayer. The main safeguard is the srtong and healhy opinion of the workers themselves. In spite of all. the croakers we are convinced that this’is now, as always, bn the side of work, a,nd that it will keep in check any tendency to make out-of-work allowances a substitute for work and wages.”