Full text: Realities and problems

It may be convenient here to call attention to the enormous 
increase in the burden of these social services, pointing out yet 
again that those who benefit from them and imagine they are 
themselves unaffected by the high cost of them, are greatly mistaken. 
Before the war the total expenditure of the country upon social 
services was approximately £63,000,000 per annum. To-day the 
amount so spent is nearer £400,000,000 per annum, which is double 
what was spent before the war on the whole cost of government of 
this country. This amount isin part contributed to by Local Rates, 
and it should be noted includes about £50,000,000 per annum on 
account of War Pensions and in any comparison this should be 
borne in mind. 
The Unemployment Insurance Fund is bankrupt. The only 
means whereby it is enabled to continue to pay any benefits are 
by so-called Treasury advances, in other words, by further contri- 
butions from the tax-payer. These further contributions amounted 
at the end of October, 1930, to another £53,000,000; by the end 
of this year it will be nearer £70,000,000. 
Again, it is necessary to point out that the money advanced 
for these purposes is so much money withdrawn from the total 
available for Industry. 
It 1s a matter of common knowledge that in fact there exists 
no longer any scheme at all which is properly described as Un- 
employment Insurance. It is unemployment relief, because the 
benefits are paid to large numbers of persons who never have been 
insured and in some cases even are never likely to be. 
Speaking at the Mansion House on October 15th, 1930, Mr. 
Snowden, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said that in this current 
year he had to find £21,000,000 in order to supplement the 
unemployment benefits paid to those who have either exhausted 
their legitimate drawings from the Insurance Fund, or never have 
been insured at all. Still further money will have to be raised for 
the same purpose before the end of the year. 
The Minister of Labour said, as far back as the end of J uly, 
that the additional money then to be borrowed for the purpose would 
be exhausted by the end of the year even if unemployment did not 
much exceed on an average 2,000,000. Actually the most recent 
figures show that it is already over 2} millions. 
EDUCATION. 
One of the items included in Social Service costs is education. 
It is not possible here to dogmatise on the limits to which education,
	        
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