UNEMPLOYMENT MONEY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 850, 19 December 1929, Page 11

UNEMPLOYMENT MONEY

SNOWDEN ON INSURANCE BILL EXCHEQUER TAKES LOAD I United P.A. —B 7 Telegraph—Copyright RUGBY, Tuesday. Iu the House of Commons the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr. Philip Snowden, in moving the third reading of the Unemployment Insurance Bill, referred to the finances of the insurance fund, to restore the solvency of which was one of the aims of the Bill. Mr. Snowden said the debt on that fund had grown from £5,000,000 to £37,000,000 in a little over five years. But for the fact that the Act of two years ago reduced contributions to the fund, the'debt would have fallen to £30,000,000. The Government was faced with the alternatives of increased bellowing powers for the fund, or raising the contributions, or handing to the Exchequer the responsibility for keeping the fund solvent. It had decided on the last course. The financial proposals in the Bill were very complicated. They would add £14,000,000 to the Exchequer contribution to the fund. The increased benefits to young persons were very small. The additional annual cost to the fund of the scheme was about £370,000. The increased rates for dependants would cost about £1,750,000, but the altered conditions regarding the finance of the fund were responsible for the main financial burden. Referring to the much-discussed clause amending the conditions on which benefit is paid to urfemployed persons “genuinely seeking work,” he said there were three classes of working people. The vast majority, 99 per cent., and perhaps more, were honest and straightforward men, who felt the humiliation of being out of work, and who strained every nerve to get work. There was another class who might be called ineflicients, who wanted w-ork but experienced the greatest difficulty in getting it. There was also a neligible class who perhaps preferred to live in State-endowed idleness rather than earn their living by working. It was much better that one person in 1,000 should get a benefit, although he did not deserve it, than that 999 persons who deserved it should not get it.