A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THE Unemployment Assistance Board is presumably reconsidering its maligned regulations, and mean- while the uninsured unemployed are enjoying the old rate or the new, whichever is the higher. Meanwhile also I find opinion in the House of Commons hardening against what is regarded as the too craven capitulation of the Government to an outcry which could have been counted on no matter what the new regulations were. That is putting it too high, for there is no doubt that there were certain genuine grievances over such matters as reduction of the allowances if rent was below 7s. 6d., and insistence on the household means test, as distinct from the test of the individual's means. But a com- parative study of localities where the old Public Assis- tance was administered on a normal and on a lavish scale respectively is instructive. - I have seen no reference, for example, to some figures given by the L.C.C. a week or two ago. It appears, if I interpret the figures rightly, that out of 26,000 persons receiving transitional assistance only 168 found it profitable to retain their old rates rather than accept the new Unemployment Assistance Board scale. That does not suggest any widespread discontent with the new scale in London. The sooner the whole question is permanently settled the better, and I predict that if the Board's new regulations meet the two or three points on which criticism was recognized as just they will find considerable support on the Conservative and Liberal benches.
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