“DOLE” FOR YOUNG MEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 827, 22 November 1929, Page 9

“DOLE” FOR YOUNG MEN

LLOYD GEORGE AGAINST LABOUR PLAN “FIND WORK FOR THEM” British Official Wireless Reed. 11.12 a.m. RUGBY, Thurs. Miss Margaret Bondfield, Minister of Labour, moved in the House of Commons the second reading of the Unemployment Insurance Bill. She said the object of the measure was to remedy the outstanding defects of the present system. The most important change in the Bill was the abolition of tlie condition placing on the claimant for unemployment pay an onus that he was minutely seeking work, and on the submission of a new claim placing on the Labour Exchange the onus of showing, not only that employment of a suitable kind for the claimant was available, but that he could reasonably have been expected to know of it. Miss Bondfield contended that the old condition involved a pychological test, which it was administratively impossible to maintain with the least degree of equity, particularly in the depressed areas. Another important proposal of the Bill was contained in the clause lowering the minimum age for insurance. The Government had announced its intention of raising the school leaving age to 15. That step would be taken not later than 1931. The Bill proposed that when it was taken, the minimum age for insurance should be reduced from the present age of 16 to the school-leaving age. Mr. Lloyd George, the Liberal Leader, strongly criticised the Bill. It was, he said, difficult to say “No” to a proposal giving 2s extra to the wives of the unemployed, but his principal misgivings w e as to the tremendous expenditure which was being run up as a result of the Bill as a whole —expenditure which this country could not pay. We ‘had already, since the General Election, added a burden of £19,000,000 to the next year’s Budget. With regard to the extension of unemployment pay to boys of 15, Mr. Lloyd George said they ought to be putting the whole of their efforts into seeing that the young men of 17, IS, 19, and even beyond that age, had got something to do. He appealed to the Government to make an effort to find work for the 3 T ounger men, instead of bringing in doles to increase their demoralisation.

HARASSED LEADERS

BRITISH LABOUR CABINET’S TROUBLES LONDON, Wednesday. The Russian question is only one of the Labour Government’s anxieties. It is being harassed by its back “benchers,” who complain of the niggardliness of the increases in the unemployment dole. Other critics say (hat what the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Snowden, saved at The Hague he has given away over and over again in social allowances. Furthermore, the coalmining legislation, plus the problems of India, Egypt and Irak, are causing the members of the Cabinet to do a lot of thinking. In the House of Commons the Prime Minister, answering questions, stated that he intended to make a statement on the policy of the Government regarding East Africa, and the House would have an opportunity of debating the Government’s proposals; but he could not promise that these proposals would be laid before the House before Christmas. The Prime Minister also stated that it. would not be possible to submit the question of the signature of the Optional Clause and the Egyptian Treaty to the House before Christmas. The Miners’ Bill would be proceeded with as soon as possible.