THE COST OF THE "DOLE"
[TO the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—May I congratulate your correspondent, " Ignotus," upon his courageous letter in your issue dated January 25th ? Greatly daring, he has 'challenged the whole principle of State Unemployment Insurance with .its bewildering regu- lations, its umpires and courts of referees, its millions of stamps and cards, its costly administration, and above all, its inhuman waste of life and energy.
He will be told, no doubt, that the State scheme is inevitable because no system- of -industrial unemployment -pay can be made workable. But the idea that the State scheme itself is " workable," surely belongs to that age of muddle and make- believe in which that scheme arose ! So far from being unworkable, I am convinced that a properly designed system of industrial unemployment pay would do its work so efficiently that the public anxiety, now so very evident, would give place to general satisfaction.
Unemployment pay after all is not a matter for insurance. No power company would think of contributing to an insurance office for the maintenance• of the generating machinery that it carries in reserve to- meet a fluctuating load. That would only be following a roundabout route instead of a straight line. The analogy is, think, suggestive.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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