WHAT THE BILL INVOLVES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 245, 14 September 1929, Page 8

WHAT THE BILL INVOLVES.

The short title of the J3ill Mr Fraser is sponsoring- in the House is the “Unemployed Workers Act, 1929,” and it defines “worker” as meaning- “any person, male or female, of the ag-e of sixteen years or upwards, employed to do any kind of work for hire or reward; used in relation to a person unemployed the term means a person avlio when employed fulfilled the conditions aforesaid.” It further defines the “minimmu living- wage” as meaning “the wage fixed by an industrial agreement, or by an award of the Court of Arbitration, or, if no industrial agreement or award exists, the ruling wage for similar work in the district.” The crucial clauses of the Bill, however, cover — Clause 4.—The right of the unemployed worker to bo registered for employment at any Government Labour Bureau. Clause s.—The right of every worker to receive a minimum living wage for his or her services, and Clause 6.—The right of every immigrant who has been “induced or assisted by the New Zealand Government to come to New Zealand to receive a minimum living wage for his or her services immediately on arrival at any port in New Zealand.” „■« The plain English of this seems to be that every unemployed person in this Dominion (the “unemployable” are also presumably included) is to be paid for his or her services, whether such services are given to the public or not, and whether such person adds to production or simply loafs on the community. There is no stipulation that an unemployed person, who is offered and refuses to accept work, shall be barred from receiving “a minimum living wage,” nor is the extent of that “living wage” defined. Again there is no provision in the Bill that the worker should make any sort of provision during the periods in which he is employed for the “rainy day” on which he may find himself out of work. He is to be allowed to exist on “a living wage” at the 'expense of the community—to be maintained in idleness while other people have to work to keep him. It would be sheer foolishness to invite immi-g-rants to come to this country jf such a law was placed on the Statute Book. We shall probably be told that it is a humanitarian measure, but it is directly negative of all incentives to self-re-liance, which induces self-respect, independence of .character and effort, and those thrifty principles upon which the bulk of the British nations have been brought up—principles that have conduced more than anything else to -the greatness of the Empire and its peoples. By all means let the State help the poor and needy, and care for the sick and the neglected—charitably minded persons are always ready to assist in these directions—but to implant in the minds of the people of this generation that they are entitled to receive a “minimum living wage,” whether they w r ork or not, is to undo much of that which has helped to build up the nation.