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for these purposes is so much money withdrawn from the total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 is 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 July,
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
fioures 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.