Political commentary
Choosing the dole
George Gale
For the past two or three weeks I have been only briefly in London and have spent my time in Suffolk, doing a bit of sailing, observing the surprisingly good harvest being gathered (or rather, combined), overhearing rustic chatter in the pubs (much of it concerned with Ipswich Town's early misfortunes after last season's Cup triumph) and endeavouring to concentrate my attention on the consequences of moving house and the nigh-impossibility of getting workmen to turn up on time. I have noted in the local press no shortage of situations vacant for skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers, in offices, in factories, in banks and bars, in schools and social services homes, for salesmen, auditors, typists, chefs, grab operators, foundry workers, drivers, carpenters, tool fitters and setters, hosiery consultants, catering supervisors. I take this list from a very thin, post-Bank Holiday Tuesday edition of the admirable East Anglian Daily Times. These advertisements, combined with my own difficulty (which! find in conversation is experienced by everyone else in similar plight) in getting work done, convinces me that a very great deal of the unemployment we have in this country is voluntary.
August is not a time for serious political activity, even in an election year, nor does it provide the kind of political news which invites discussion or dissection. In my part of the countryside I could not bear to think of Farmer Callaghan in his, with a straw in his mouth, or chewing the cud and generally cultivating his avuncular image of amiable competence: an image as far removed from the real, short-tempered, indecisive and incompetent Callaghan as is any gaudily painted clown from the traditionally sad man beneath. Still: credit where it's due. Clowns amuse the kids and Callaghan fools the grown-ups — but it's very irritating, nonetheless.
But let's leave the old fraud down on the farm. It's all these situations vacant that nag me, and all the difficulties I experience in getting work done. I read of how 'appalling' the unemployment figures are: but who is appalled, except for the odd MP who fears for his seat, and the few and the good who are genuinely distressed at the evident unemployability of semi-literate youths drifting into crime? Union leaders prate of the present level of unemployment as being 'unacceptable'. Unacceptable to whom? Not, it would seem, to the public at large; and not, it would also seem, to a large number of unemployed people themselves. Inflation, not unemployment, has become public enemy number one, and with wages charging ahead of prices, the Government has seen to it that there's cash and credit to hand and the people spend, spend, spend.
They spend, spend, spend, but they do not make, make, make and many of them do not work, work, work. There is very little growth in the economy. We are spending what we have not earned, which is always a pleasant thing to do, and even prudent if the assumption — which is sensible enough under the circumstances — is made that inflation will surge ahead again. The housewife down our way in the country who arranges a bank loan in order to buy nonperishable groceries and the like in bulk sufficient to last her for the next five yearg or so, prudently calculates that the interest on the loan will be less than the inflation she expects. Her borrowing, of course, expands the money supply, just like everybody else's does, especially the Government's, and thus augments the inflation she hedges against. There is a boom in spending but no boom at all in making, working, producing.
Let me not exaggerate. This is harvest time and the farm-workers are most certainly working and producing. So, indeed, is the great bulk of the working population. But it is those who are not working who bother me; I find myself wondering how many of the unemployed have come to the conclusion that, what with doing odd jobs for cash and odd jobs round the home, they are better off unemployed. I find myself wondering, too, how many of them, especially among the young, have concluded that life and love on the dole are better than at work. I know plenty such. They make no bones about it. If they find themselves suddenly strapped for cash, they do a few days' work decorating, or picking beans or fruit or whatever. I know a slightly-built teenager who had no difficulty picking peas for over £40 a week cash.
Now I will be told that, while there may be some such people about, enlarging the unemployment figures, they represent only the fringe of the unemployed: and as proof it will he pointed out that unemployment is greatest in the inner cities and in the old, depressed development areas: the traditional places of high unemployment and decaying industries. These places used to be the boom areas, where the industrial wealth of the country was generated. They became heavily populated because people flocked there for work, to receive money wages. These places and these people were where they were because there was coal, there was iron, there was soft water; and there were inventors of genius and capital to hand and nothing much in the way of government regulations.
There were model factories, but also sweated labour, child labour, exploitation. Out of all this the wealth of the nation grew and we prospered as no nation had ever prospered before. Governments brought in necessary laws to protect women and children and to reduce exploitation, and trade unions grew as workers perceived that their strength lay in combination. Wars speeded up industrialisation and invention, and in very broad terms the wealth of the nation, and of the workers in it, has increased three-fold since 1945. Workers now have cars,colour television sets, washing' machines, bank accounts, credit cards. There is virtually no child labour, virtually no sweated labour, virtually no
tation. exploi
But there is unemployment and the economy has stopped growing, and unemployment is highest in the areas where once prosperity was greatest. People eagerlY moved into those areas for work. Now, they are reluctant to move out for work. They are reluctant, too, to change their jobs. MU they are reluctant to leave rent-controlled homes. There are jobs: but not the right jobs in the right places. So they stay Pat; unemployed, hoping that the Governmen will come along and provide the right 0b5 in the right places, which means right for them, and wrong for the country. Wilt governments make jobs, they make the wrong jobs in the wrong places for the wrong reasons.Their reasons are invaria,bI„Y political. This being so, only by fluke will a" occasional project succeed and flourish. t 01 How voluntary is the unemploymen e those who will not move house to sear._ employment or who will not change trade to get a job? It is not pleasant to uproot you'of self and your family, or to discard one skills to learn another. Nonetheless, man by moving and changing could f work and a home but declines to do so, "`" too, is unemployed by choice. for When! see so many advertisements jobs vacant and find it so difficult to td work done, and when I look about me Intl' to reflect, the conclusion becomes diffien,,,,h resist that governments contribute to n'e6nt unemployment by making unemploYM,,tr tolerably comfortable for many. They tribute, too, in other ways: by keeping °Yell, s unprofitable plants, which saves a few Juue but which, by reducing the wealth ef nation, loses more; by laws whicheon courage employers from taking on staff; by an incomes policy which disawsd. wages and hampers profitable and "P_Ties; ing firms while featherbedding ailing v....11s. and by a grotesque excess of regulan'_,, Likewise, trade unions now create
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