The Sun THURSDAY, JULY 19, 1928 A POULTICE FOR RELIEF

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 410, 19 July 1928, Page 10

The Sun THURSDAY, JULY 19, 1928 A POULTICE FOR RELIEF

ADVOCATES and supporters of a legislative scheme for establishing national unemployment insurance in this backward country jfin their arguments mainly on the British system. In respect of principle, their faith is set on firm ground, hut in practice Great Britain’s statutory methods for the relief of unemployment are not convincing, and certainly not enviable. The British system of unemployment insurance has distributed much genuine relief throughout an exceptionally difficult period and, contrary to a widespread belief, it has not been abused to a serious extent. That, at any rate, is the verdict of the Blanesburgh Committee which investigated the operations of the national fund. But it has proved conclusively that unemployment insurance is not a cure for the chronic industrial disease of unemployment. It does not even prevent unemployment; it merely alleviates the social distress that is inseparable from enforced idleness. Politicians and other humanitarians should realise the fact that the best systems of unemployment insurance are and can be nothing better than palliatives, like the use of drugs for a disease that needs treatment at its roots. Since the introduction of the British system over £500,000,000 has been spent on the relief of the unemployed and the indigent poor, much of whose distress was attributable to the evils of unemployment. To-day, in Great Britain, the unemployed army musters close on a million ablebodied persons. In addition, the indigent poor total over 420,000. The price of pauperism has been well described as appalling. It now aggregates £49,500,000 a year—more than Great Britain pays annually for the upkeep of its Army, one of the most efficient fighting units in the world. So, everything considered, unemployment in the Old Country still has to be dealt with in a score of different ways and at a score of different points and yet, after everything has been done, a million men, women, boys and girls all the time are compelled to beg leave to toil. It is a great record for the power and wisdom of politicians and humanitarians. Members of our Parliament gave serious attention last evening to the vexed question of unemployment relief. The deputyleader of the Labour Opposition, Mr. P. Fraser, introduced a Bill providing for the adoption of a scheme of unemployment insurance mainly on the lines of the Queensland Act, which is a meagre measure of relief for the unemployed, the scale of benefits, according to the number of the recipient’s dependants, ranging from 16s 3d to 35s a week. The insured adult worker there contributes only threepence a week. But then the Queensland Legislature is not afraid to load posterity with the cost of deficits on generous Socialistic experiments. Posterity, unborn, happily, has no say on the subject, and the living, so long as benefits and boi'rowed money are available, are content to remain silent as to the cost. There is no prospect of Mr. Fraser’s Bill finding its way into the Statute Book. It is clearly an appropriation measure and therefore assured of rejection. Even if it were not, and held all the merits a legislative proposal of the kind might contain, it is not likely that the. Government would accept it and make it an active law. Can anyone imagine members of the Government Party going to the hustings in the early summer and confessing from a hundred platforms that one of the most popular enactments of its career was a gift from the Socialists? Such altruism is not yet known in party politics. The introduction of the Bill, however, served to loosen ixseful ideas on the problem of unemployment relief, and the discussion already has demonstrated the difficulties and dangers involved. It is true that relief must he provided, but it is arguable whether or no the establishment of an unemployment insurance scheme would do much to eliminate the blight of unemployment. Personally, we believe that £1 spent on useful employment is preferable to spending 30s on unemployment relief. What is wanted most urgently is new public works and new industries.