SOME SUGGESTIONS ON UNEMPLOYMENT [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—As unemployed workers are continually asked, "Have you no remedy, no suggestions to make yourselves to alleviate or reduce to normal unemployment ? " I suggest the following :-
1. The compulsory enforcement of the proper upkeeping, painting, papering, repairs, &c., of all houses, for which purpose the 1923 Act, allowing 40 per cent, increase of rental, was granted. Requests to owners and factors to do this work are almost always met with a flat refusal.
2. Reduction, with ultimate abolition, of cheap female, and cheap coloured and foreign, labour, and employment of male white labour at a living wage.
3. Assisted emigration of suitable families for genuine employ- ment ; not merely to emigrate them to give shipping companies fares to bring them back again.
4. The opening up of reciprocal trading relations with Soviet Russia, so that our exporting industries from cured herrings to locomotives, and our import trade of wheat, timber, petroleum, &c., may again be placed on a pre-war footing.
5. Abolition of the employment of children, wider sixteen years of age, at a minimum of wages for a maximum of work. 6. New fishing harbours, enlargement of existing harbours and building of breakwaters. 7. Trenching and cultivation of waste lands with 75 per cent. State ownership of same on completion of the work.
8. Prevention of coast erosion.
9. Abolition of multiple job holding, such as contained, for example, in a recent advertisement for a chauffeur-mechanic- engineer-secretary, able to work in garden and do odd jobs about the house.
10. The investigation of the question of individuals with substantial pensions holding in addition well-paid situations, with the object of equalizing matters on the principle of "Live and let live."
11. Abolition of understaffmg in all employments. 12. Shortening of hours of labour all round, especially in the mining industry for which a seven-hours day is sufficient. 13. State distribution to markets of all surplus foods, under food control prices, to prevent wanton destruction, such as the " dumping " of herrings, destroying of surplus potatoes, &c.
14. Pay higher wages in all industries. It stimulates purchase and circulation of products all round, thus adding to the ranks of the employed.
15. Country-bred and farm-trained people should go back to the country. They get more certain employment there and live healthier, happier and sweeter lives than in the cities.
The thorough carrying out of No. 1 alone, I firmly believe, would solve unemployment for a twelvemonth in the particular trades engaged. As the 40 per cent. increase of rental was given strictly for upkeep which. has been ignored, legislation to compel a refund of this increase, where no repairs or other work have been attempted, would stimulate employment. I make Mr. Thomas a present of this suggestion.
In No. 2: (a) Cheap female labour should not be continued to its present alarming extent. Male labour, well enough paid to keep the whole family in health and comfort, has invariably proved the best arrangement. (b) The employment of cheap coloured and foreign labour in preference, particularly in shipping, to our own white labour is a national scandal. On a visit not long ago to Leith Docks, out of six large steamers trading abroad I counted five manned by Lascar crews, while outside the dock gates and in the adjoining streets, white British seamen in scores were standing about idle, almost, Heaven help us ! symbolical of a nation in decay. Again, it is quite correct to say that this picture is true of every seaport in Britain. Is this "thinking imperially," or on a "strictly cash" basis ?—I am, Sir, &c., M. A. C.
[The writer of this letter is himself one of the unemployed. We are glad to print his letter, both as an instance of the hopeful and constructive spirit of many so situated, and as showing what remedies are discussed among those most directly concerned by the unemployment problem.— ED, Spectator.]
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