LABOUR EXCHANGES.
(To THE Emma or TEE " Svzorerme."1
515,—Will you extend to mo the indulgence of your columns to reinforce and emphasize your demand for the abolition of the Ministry of Labour and the Labour Exchanges? When this German institution (as Mr. Neville Chamberlain very perti- nently termed it) was forced upon the nation, in absolute defiance of the expressed will of the people, by Mr. Winston Churchill, it was stated that the ostensible object in creating the exchanges was to bring the man with labour to sell into contact with employers in quest of such labour, and thereby relieve the toil-worn artisan of the necessity of making a circumforancous canvass of the workshops. That, I say, was what Mr. Churchill'assured us was what these labour entrepots were specifically set up to do. In order to show what they have been in practice I shall adduce evidence which neither Dr. Macnamara nor any of his bureaucrats, with all their craft, subtlety, or subterfuge, will be able to refute.
On April 6th, 1920, I made application to the Queen Anne's Chambers Exchange to have my name placed on their register with a view to their securing me a situation. On the 12th of that month (it will be seen I had to wait six days for a reply) I received a letter, under the signature of " Harry Smith," on behalf of the Director of the Ministry of Labour, informing me that it was contrary to the Ministry's rules to register my name, since I " did not live within the area covered by that Exchange."
On April 27th, 1920, I received from the Lisson Grove Exchange (to whom my "case had been forwarded for action ") certain forms with the request that I should fill up same and return them, when " every endeavour would be made to find me suitable employment." This I duly did. Not hearing anything further regarding their "endeavours to find me suitable employ- ment," I wrote the Lisson Grove Exchange on November 10th, 1920, asking for a reason as to why I had heard nothing further from them, and the following is the reply I received :— 80 Lisson Grove, W. 2., 16th November, 1920. Sra,—I am in receipt of your letter dated 10111/20, and beg to state the D/Manager who wrote you last April is, unfortu- nately, away sick.
(Signed) FRED. C. WILLIAMS,.
Manager." A nice system of State Labour Exchanges when applicants for work have to wait while the " D/Manager," like Peter's wife, is lying at home sick of a fever for eight months. This is not the worst feature of these State employment proxinetes. On the very morning that I requested the Queen Anne's Cham- bers Exchange to register my name as an applicant for work, they received an application from an employer for a person possessing the qualification. I had to sell, and he was told no person having the qualification had registered with them or made application to them—a colossal lie, in view of my applica- tion. I brought these facts to the knowledge of Dr. Mac- namara, and requested him to furnish me with a reason as to why I was not placed in communication by his Queen Anne's Chambers Exchange with the employer in quest of the services I had to dispose of ; but can get no reply. I have also asked the Member of Parliament for the constituency in which 1 reside to put questions to him, but every time such questions are put down Dr. Macnamara absents himself from the House until after question time. Comment on the above is needless.
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