LETTERS TO THE EDITOR LAMENT OF AN UNEMPLOYED MAN [To
the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sm,—I read the letter of " A Draughtsman " with interest. I also am an unemployed draughtsman. I have now been unemployed for nearly four and a half years. My engineering education cost my father about £600 and lasted six years. I had the further advantage of a good secondary education. I am a total abstainer, &c., and can claim most of the copy- book virtues. My greatest crime is that I am over fifty. The first year that draughtsmen were brought under the Unemployment Act, I (for the first time in my life) was getting £4 16s. a week (or just over £250 a year). My average annual income as an engineer (employed years only) has been about MIX. Now £250 a year was the maximum limit under the Act. Consequently I was barred out of unemploy- ment insurance. Voluntary contributors were not allowed under the Unemployment Act. I am a voluntary contributor under the Health Act. The year after draughtsmen came under the Unemployment Act the slump came ; in our office I think about 50 per cent. of the draughtsmen were discharged. I had insured against unemployment in two trade unions, but the benefits were soon used up. The only " dole " I have received (in addition to the trade union benefit) has come through the kindness and charity of my near relations. But one does not like living on charity, however kind and sympathetic.
I have been able to earn a little money in other ways. Fortunately I have had the prudence to remain unmarried, very much against my natural inclinations. Now for the drawbacks of being unemployed. One feels one is not wanted : the public would very much like to put one in lethal chamber, if only their moral code would let them. Absence of regular employment makes life dull, and gives one too much time to think about oneself and other un- desirable things It is necessary to keep up appearances on a shrinking capital. The longer one is out of work the more rusty one becomes. The longer one is out of work, the harder it becomes to get work. Had I known I should be unemployed so long and had I had the money, I could have gone to a university and taken a degree. But a degree would not make one younger, nor one's hair black, nor one's skin fresh, and I find age is my greatest drawback. I also find that in England it is not easy to change your occupation. Once an engineer always an engineer. I know cases can be cited to the contrary, but they are the exception.
Another unexpected thing is that circumstances (e.g., poverty) often prevent one from doing even unpaid voluntary work. In my particular case there is a comic element ; as a baby I nearly died several times, and was pulled back to life by medical skill ; now I am hale and hearty, and might per- haps live another thirty years, I am not wanted by my country. I dare not append my name to this letter as it would prejudice my chances of getting work, as advertisement of his unemploy- ment is the last thing an unemployed man needs. I therefore must sign myself ANOTHER DRAUGHTSMAN. P.S.—On the whole I am probably much better off than most of the unemployed.
[No sensitive person will be able to read this letter, which carries its own internal proofs of truthfulness, without sympathy. Our correspondent is the innocent victim of all those post-War conditions which have made peace to many people more devastating than war. Our correspondent, who has not written for effect, is probably unaware how brave his bearing seems to us. There is bravery in his humorous and friendly contemplation of the ironic fate which saved his life in order in the end to waste it. There is here none of that morbid self-pity which often develops into fanaticism and makes a man hostile to other men.—En. Spectator.]
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