Dee, The announcement that Judge Holman Gregory—formerly Liberal Member for. South Derbyshire—is to preside over the Royal Commission appointed to investigate the administration of unemployment insurance draws attention to. the urgency of that problem. The difficulties which are be lieved to be threatening Mr. Philip Snowden in the preparation of his next Budget might be lightened if the Commission could come to an early decision on certain glaring defects which, thanks to trade depression, have been multiplying their baneful! influence on the Insurance Fund In July, Miss Bondfield coming to the House of Commons for an additional £10 millions to keep the unemployment relief administration functioning, had to admit. that the Fund was £43 millions in debt and that the annual expenditure of the Fund exceeded its income by £25 millions. It was expected that, if the unemployment figure exceeded 2,000,000 the supplementary grant of £10 millions would be exhausted before Christmas. This state of affairs naturally aroused lively anxiety among the three political parties, except perhaps among that section the Labour Party which believes that the ultimate happiness of a ion will consist in maintaining the whole population on. a subsistence allowance, precluding the need or inclination to work. It was clear that, in some way or another, the Government were saddled with an organization to whose expenditure no satisfactory limit could be put. Lurid stories were told in the press regarding the irresponsibility of the recipients of the benefits lavishly obtainable from the Fund. Ata time when the leaders of industry were insisting on the importance of retrenchment as a factor in the revival of national prosperity, the revelation of the burdensome character of the Fund was particularly provocative.
'The. facts—apart from the picturesque but not always substantiated tales of luxurious living by men and women on the dole—appear to be established with sufficient seriousness. Owing to the pressure' brought to bear on the late and present Governments by misguided humanitarians, the scope of the fund was extended to meet the increasing distress of "the unemployed sections of the population and, so, to tackle problems, the purview of the Poor Law the administration of which had fallen into disrepute. The e2- couragement given by democracy to the notion that the State should endeavour to make good extension of the point of fact it began rapidly lose the sound actuarial basis on which it had been originally built and, in assuming the character of a system of poor-law relief, it passed out of the reckoning' of statistical experts and became merely a mad gamble on extravagant hopes of a turn of the economic tide. With the passing of the trade depression and the consequent reduction of unemployment, it was hoped that the financial commitments created by the new obligations would be kept within bounds.
Similar optimism has receiv: ed a rude shock in the United States of America. England is in the process of undergoing the same enlightenment. The Holman Gregory Commission will do a public service if it hastens the experience and gives intruction in the plain lation of facts. It has deal with a scheme, the actuarial basis of which broken down under the une: pected pressure of numbers of workless and duration of worklessness. The result threatens to give a substantial Budget de ficit and therefore to compel the Chancellor of the Exchequer to resort to the increase of taxation. Owing to the faulty drafting of recent legislation o:
put it more fairly, to the persistence with which the House of Commons has endeavoured to express its emotions in terms of legal definitions, the Fund hgs been exposed to the heavy drain of expenditure in directions which have affronted public opinion. The intrusion of well-meaning but financially dishonest considerations into the administration of the fund has been in part responsible for this grave leakage. Forgetfulness of the importance of pre serving the first principles of the doctrine of trusteeship, when dealing with the nation'—and therefore, other people—miney has marked Parlii mentary handling of the issues raised by successive attempts to graft on to what was, primarily, an insurance fund purely emergency devices which could not possibly be. actuarily assessed So it is not surprising to learn that, in the words of the Chait-man of the Denison House Committee on Public Assistance, man in receipt of relief for 25 years off and on, convicted of highway robbery with violence; of placing a night watchman on} his fire; of wife beat tion, and a notorious blackmailer:' was permitted to enjoy the bene fits of the Fund, in order "not to punish the kiddies: has also declined that habit of pooling family resources in the fact of emergency, because of the ease with which surance and public can be obtained. In short there has been a marked reluctance to look for work and, in many eases, men and women on the dole have been: the ardent pat rons of places of amusement like dance-halls, racecourses and cinemas. Whether the evil is as deep-rooted as some critics suggest may be doubted. The seriousness of the figures quoted. above cannot however, be denied. It is for the Royal Comm! sion to come to a judicial finding and to suggest prompt and
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.