Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-06-04
BY CYRIL ARTHUR PLAYER.

BY Cable TO The Star.
LONDON, June 4.-Before long there
will be a general election in Britain.
The issue will be once more the solution
of unemployment. But whereas on
former occasions there has been No
visible solution other than to keep alive
the army of the impoverished, today
these and emerging from experience
sound ideas
1t is the task Of the parties to seize
these ideas and fit them to their re-
Spective political creeds For whereas
the issue of unemployment has long
been non-political. even If not SO recog-
nized, 1t is not yet non-party.
If it were non-party there might be
better hope for solution effectively
applied Therefore, the dim and
swiftly crushed suggestion of statu-
tory commission which would auto
matically be free from parliamentary
interference remains something to think
about. At present it is theoretically
simple for the authorities to deny bene-
fit to an apparently work-shy applicant.
but it IS only too practically simple for
a member of parliament to make it
case" for question in the House of
Commons.
Agree 1t Is State Problem.
All parties agree that unemployment
Is state problem, that unemployment
insurance is both workable and neces-
sary.
The war began in 1914. This is
1881. Children born in 1914 are now
approaching their seventeenth year.
Children too young to comprehend the
wal. even when it ended are now in the
early twenties. Many of them have
known nothing but an era of i'm
poverishment. of under-privilege. of
but homemade pleasures, and there is
no work for them. That is serious.
Something, at any cost, must be done
to keep at least a flicker in these hun
dreds of thousands Of young men and
women who are growing up in a false
and demoralizing atmosphere; some
thing. at any cost. must be done for
the homes in which these youngsters
are raised. The methods are I'M
economic and the treasury is in the
red? What Of it? Sooner the treas
jail for thievery and vagabondage, or
in the grave from starvation.
That is the view Labor takes.
Miss Margaret Bondfield, the min
lister of labor. inherited the problem
when it already was policy Of despair.
Miss Bondfield represents the practical
idealiSm of the labor movement. In
effect, that viewpoint Is expressed in
the words following, and it may be
accepted as the official attitude and
justification of the Labor party's atti-
tude toward the supreme problem of
the land.
Here is the official Labor viewpoint:
The country will never get away from
a system of unemployment insurance,
but it must find right financial basis.
Sickness insurance could be based on
known risks, because Of preceding data
of the sick benefit friendly" societies.
Unemployment insurance is sheer risk.
This must be worked out on the
ground of insurance. The ups and
downs Of trade have not yet been Suff1-
GENTLY charted. Not until this decade
have people studied trade in relation
to unemployment. In many European
countries, including Germany especially,
unemployment has come to stay.
Three Reasons Cited.
It Is a question of perfecting the
system to find methods to cover the
risk. Unemployment insurance is
necessary for three reasons, Labor holds,
those reasons as follows:
The human reason, that the awful
shadow of what's going to happen when
the job stops should be mitigated.
Socially speaking. 1t is bad for trade
and bad for industry to have this rise
and fall in the standard of living.
After workers have been submerged 1t
Is hard, later, to find f1rst-rate men.
In relation to modern industry,
Is replacing human
labor. A new distribution for incomes
earned by machines is needed to make
certain the level Of the consuming
power in the community.
The Labor government has done
more than fulfill its contract and Is
paying those who have failed to keep
up contribution. When unemployment
started there was a certain period of
relief for a certain period of payment,
but that proved inadequate. If we
threw people on the poor law Cocal
relief it would be more expensive and
would bankrupt the local authorities"
The burden has been taken off the
rate-payer and placed on the Taxpayer.
Unemployment insurance, 1t is agreed,
might be difficult to apply in a big
country like the United States. Such
a system there would have to be on
State lines. The United Kingdom has
a fine system of labor exchanges,
through which the unemployed can
seek work. Unemployment insurance
could not be administered without it.
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