PRESIDENT S ADDRESS — SECTION GI. 



465 



illness, disablement, or bad conduct his benefit ceases. Nor is he 

 entitled to any payments if he refuses work offered to him by the 

 State Labour Exchange, which works in close harmony with the 

 Insurance Department. 



The Campaign Outlined. — To deal effectively with the great 

 problem of the unemployed it must be attacked on three sides 

 with a view — 



(1) To assist the temporarily unemployed 



(2) To dispose of the permanent surplus 



(3) To so improve the organisation of industry as to 



prevent unemployment. 



The first problem — to assist the temporarily unemployed — is 

 the one that is most insistent, and evokes immediate sympathy. 

 Benevolent persons rush in here where economists fear to tread. 

 Charitable organisations of all sorts compete uith each other in 

 helping the wife and children of some worthless beer-soaked husband. 

 Relief societies, managed often with more kindness than judgment, 

 crowd each other in their efforts to "do good." The money sub- 

 scribed by the public and spent in direct relief would probably, 

 if spent on scientific lines, cope twice over with the whole problem. 

 Almost every civilised country has its imposing array of relief 

 statistics. Even in happy Japan the public purse is open to 

 relieve distress. Here are the figures of expenditure for 1907 (in 

 yen, exclusive of Formosa) : — 



Shelter 6,044 



536,599 



In the United Kingdom two million paupers are relieved in 

 the year. 20-8 per 1000 of the population of the United Kingdom 

 may be regarded as permanent paupers ; and 26-3 per 1000 are 

 given temporary relief for a shorter or longer period, but for less 

 than six months. The total expenditure on poor relief for 1906-7 

 was £16,428,064. In 1856 to 1857 the cost of pauperism in poor 

 law institutes was £16 12s. per head ; in 1906-7 it had increased 

 to £29 5s, or 76 per cent. To meet special distress a grant of 

 £200,000 and a supplementary grant of £100,000 were voted by 

 the British Parliament during the financial year ending on March 

 31st, 1909. 



But such forms of charity, however sufficient for the moment, 

 leave the whole problem still unsolved. 



