It is surely time that the people of this country, especially people whose remarks are likely to gain some publicity, informed themselves about the nature of the so-called “dole.” A London coroner, after an inquest at Lambeth held on Monday on an unemployed dock labourer who had committed suicide, is reported to have said: “This man preferred death to the dole. Of course it is wrong to take one’s life, but in these circumstances I cannot help feeling respect and sympathy.” He then praised the unfortunate victim as representing the best type of Englishman.

The implication of these remarks is that suicide is less reprehensible in the case of unemployed workmen than of other people, the reason being that there is something discreditable about “the dole.” This “dole” is provided for by an extension of the Unemployment Insurance Acts, and it was no fault of the workpeople who had paid their contributions that the original self-supporting scheme had to be extended with State aid owing to the economic collapse of Europe and the resulting slump in our own labour market. The unemployed man or woman who cannot obtain work has a perfect right to benefit by the Insurance Acts, and there is no dishonour whatever in accepting the slight compensation for misfortune which they confer.

The coroner went on to make the usual attack on women who draw the dole, despite the fact that the Committee which recently reported on the supply of labour for domestic service investigated the working of the Insurance Acts very closely and reported unanimously that they were being so carefully administered that abuses were scarce enough to be negligible.

It is not the business of coroners to give further advertisement to the baseless gossip about idle women. The word “dole” may accurately be applied to the gift which Mr. BALDWIN was lately offering to arable farmers. It entirely misrepresents the nature of insurance benefits. Our scheme of national insurance is helping us through a very bad time, and it deserves a better acknowledgement than the sneers it so often receives.