Miss Bondfield's Bill On Thursday, November 21st, the House of
Commons began the second reading debate on Miss Bondfield's Unemployment Insurance Bill. The proposals of the Bill are already well known. Miss Bondfield's exposition was able in substance. She had no doubt that her tests for those " genuinely seeking work " would really transfer the onus of proof from the applicant to the official. She deplored her inability to increase the grants to adults and to reduce further the waiting period for applicants, but she had to do " the best she could " with the £12,500,000 which she had extracted from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. " I decided to increase the rates of benefits for young persons under twenty-one." We wonder why ? We should have thought that any increase ought to have gone first to older persons. Apart from the junior class Miss Bondfield has raised the benefits only for a relatively few " adult dependents " at a cost of £1,650,000. " The class," she said, " which will mainly benefit by this proposal is ' the wife of the unemployed man.' " Her excuse for helping with Treasury money the able-bodied unemployed who have ceased to be qualified under the insurance scheme was that she could neither send 132,000 unemployed to the Poor Law nor ask for increased contributions from industry. Thus the relief principle has been nakedly grafted on to a Fund which is in theory contributory.
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