We deal in another column with the opening stages of
the debate on unemployment and Mr. Burns's vigorous defence of his administration of the Unemployed Workmen Act. The Labour Party's attack Was resumed on Wednesday by Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, who contended that Mr. Burns had failed to justify the Prime Minister's pledge that the Act was going to be administered in a sympathetic spirit. The Local Government Board, he argued, had shifted its responsibilities on to the local ratepayer. He charged Mr. Burns with manipulating his statistics, especially in regard to the cost of the Hollesley Bay colony, and protested against his contemptuous dismissal of the scheme of farm colonies for women. The Chancellor of the Exchequer defended Mr. Burns for his refusal of grants, and quoted from the minority Report of the Poor Law Commission in support of his attitude. Farm colonies which failed to train men for permanent employment on the land Must in the long run have a pernicious effect. Unemployment was not confined to this country : it was a permanent phenomenon in every industrial community. He approved of the policy of anticipa- tion, but the mere provision of unnecessary work was demoralising and thoroughly uneconomic. He appealed to Mr. Burns's critics to take into account the great difficulty of administering the fund, and declared that Mr. Burns had performed a thankless task with considerable courage.
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