Unemployment Assistance The Government is well on its way to
carrying through the new Unemployment Assistance Regulations. Opening the debate in the House on Tuesday, Mr. Ernest Brown, the Minister of Labour, rightly emphasised that the Regulations preserved the principle of the 1934 Act and of the Regulations suspended last year. Indeed, there is little doubt that, so long as the Means Test is preserved, the new Regulations offer the most generous and flexible method of establishing a unified adminis- tration of unemployment relief. Both Government and Opposition are justified in claiming that the Regulations themselves are an inevitable result of the Means Test : and it is difficult, this time, to show that the principle has been applied unjustly or harshly. But even justice and efficiency can cause suffering ; and perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of the Regulations is that, while increasing allowances in 200,000 cases, they reduce them in an unspecified number, which will be drawn largely from the poorest and most depressed areas.
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