IDLENESS AND THE DOLE
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I regret that one misses the fairness one expects of The Spectator in the paragraph headed " Idlers and the Dole," in the News of the Week in your last issue.
You say that there is ,a class of unmarried unemployed drawing an unemployment assistance allowance on which they can " quite well live " of " 25s. or so." I was unaware that a single unemployed man draws more than 17s. per week dole, and I believe, under the Means Test he in fact probably draws much less. But what I really regret in the paragraph is the innuendo implied. To say that an unemployed man " can quite well live on the 25s. or so " implies that because he has the misfortune to be out of work, he is not entitled to an allow- ance on which he can quite well live, but, presumably, one on which he can do little more than exist. And I find the spirit of the suggestion of making compulsory attendance at work centres for recipients of the dole, difficult to reconcile with that of your leading article on " Fitness and Compulsion."—Yours
truly, L. M. FRANKLIN. 44 Glenioch Road, Hampstead, N.W. 3.
[(t) The 25s. was inaccurately mentioned in our paragraph as an unmarried man's allowance ; it is the married man who gets that amount.
(2) There is no inconsistency between opposing compulsory labour camps for the whole community and advocating atten- dance at industrial centres for a section of the unemployed who are drawing public money and appear to be in danger of demoral- isation through prolonged idleness.—En. The Spectator.]
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