The Means Test The strict application of the Means Test
to unemployed persons who have exhausted their insurance benefit and passed to transitional benefit is a stern economic neces- sity. Yet to administer the test is no easy or pleasant task for the Public Assistance Committees, and it says much for them and for the recipients of relief that the new regulations have worked smoothly. Indeed the public might not give them due credit were it not that certain committees, notably Glamorgan and Carmarthen, have shown an altogether exceptional laxity in distributing public moneys, and have had to be warned by the Minister of Labour that they may be superseded by official com- missioners. The conditions in the South Wales mining area are bad, but unfortunately no worse than in other districts dependent on coal and iron. In any case the law must be observed in the national interest. Since the moneys concerned come out of national funds, not the local rates, the committees have some temptation to give their charitable impulses rein. But the national finances will not stand that.
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