7 FEBRUARY 1931, Page 1

The vote in the Senate was carried in the main

by the Democratic Senators, who are making State responsibility an integral part of Democratic policy. They say that rather than be defeated on this point they will take the highly unpopular course of forcing the President to call a Special session of the new Congress. .A majority -of the House of Representatives has, however, voted against the appropriation of £5,000,000, explaining (as the Washington correspondent of the Times tells us) that their object is to save the United States from " the deadly System of The 'dole." • It may be remarked here that there is much 'rnisunderStanding in the United .States about the " dole," not perhaps in COngress; but, at all events, among ordinary lieople all over the country. It is astonishing to find how many AMeriCans believe that Unemployment Insurance benefits in Great Britain are simply Poor .Law Relief-L-a- grant doled out by the Government withinit any kind of financial or personal effort by the redolent. It is unfortunately true that the benefits have ceased to be really insurance payment?; because the Unemployment Fund is no longer solvent, but many Americans have not even heard that the benefits come in theory from a Fund which is maintained on an actuarial basis by the contri- butions of employers and the workers themselves as well as by those of the State. The issue for Congress has become " Dole or no Dole."

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