LEAVES FROM THE INSPECTOR'S NOTEBOOK.
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Obligations of Transport Workers. Unemployment Benefit and the Dilutee.
WE HADALL HOPED that the recent Christmas-tide would mark permanently, for all of us, a page in our individual and collective history which would be memorable as justifying, in a way that has never happened before, the old-time wish of peace on earth and good-will towards men. The national circumstances, of course, ensured that such a result should be achieved almost with certainty in very wide measure. The Christmas and New Year p`eriod has, however, lef t one little mark on the pages of the diary of the commercialvehicle industry which most of us would have preferred to have avoided. And, although it was but a little event, it were well if thought were taken without delay to ensure that it shall constitute no precedent. I refer particularly to the new-born decision of certain elements in the motor transport world to accentuate their own particular interests, even although they be found to clash with those of the community in whose service they are. Bus drivers and tram drivers in various parts of the country decided, in the highhanded way which has become regrettably fashionable in certain labour circles during the past year, that they would not continue their public duties on Christmas Day and New Year's Day south and north of the Tweed respectively.
I notice that the Editor in a leading article of a recent issue thought fit to record this relatively small incident, and quite rightly he attached due significance to it, in view of the possibility of this line of action becoming more common in the future. If once the principle here involved became generally adopted, and if thereafter it were an accepted fact that the nation as a whole had no right to expect 'service of any special and outstanding nature from those engaged in public duties, such a communistic tendency would have direful results on the whole structure of our collective existence. If, for instance, it once be conceded that the public tram services and bus serVices need not and, as a matter of fact, should not. be maintained on public holidays, there could likewise be no possible argument for tha, retention of such Sunday and week-end facilities as the railways, the telephone, the telegraph, the post office, public lighting, police, and so on and so on.
It is, of course, to be admitted that the sacrifice of such a particular holiday as Christmas Day or New Year's Day is in the nature of a hardship to any individual from a purely sentimental point of view, and that such sacrifice is entitled to additional pecuniary recompense. Few would deny the right to such a bonus ; few, if any, would hesitate to pay additionally for service rendered in such circumstances, but to admit that public service should automatically be suspended at a time when the public is making holiday solely in order that the eommunity as a whole may, without exception, cease their labours is entirely a cap of another colour. Why, on such occasions, should not the police, the firemen, soldiers, sailors and all others engaged in public service be all released from any suggestion of duty whatever? It is unfortunate that the transport services have been amongst the first to notify their intention to disregard public convenience in this way. It must be remembered by all those who are engaged in transport services that their duties are public ones in very many cases, and that in such occupation the terms of engagement must of necessity include duties which do not necessarily pertain to employment of a more individualistic nature. What would happen, for instance, if the public service employees all over the country were to decide that Bank Holiday should be theirs just as much as it belongs automatically to the rest of the public Transport is particularly the life Wood of holiday making in these days, and the beneficial effect of the public cessation of work would be entirely lost if the means of travel were arbitrarily removed. This will, of course, apply as much to the holiday-making public • servants who would feel the pinch just as much as those who relied upon their efforts to make the most of their days of freedom from toil. The principle is a wrong one, and transport workers as an whole should take prompt thought that they are public servants and that they, with others, owe specific and peculiar duties to the public. It is only right and proper that, where such duties involve hardship or special inconveniences, these should be acknowledged substantially by alternative benefits. The public and employers generally would certainly npt be slow to agree such a quid pro quo.
Unemployment Benefit and the Dilutee.
The columns of the daily Press during the past week or so have been reinvigorated to something like prearmistice standard by descriptions of widespread demobilization and unemployment liveliness. As I ventured to prophesy but a week or two ago, this is a foretaste of the great reconstruction effort which the nation only aow has to make. There was a tendency just before Christmas to advertise the fact that reconstruction was proceeding far more smoothly than had been anticipated, Reconstruction, demobilization, and unemployment relief are all so closely related that it is difficult to deal with one and not the others. The authorities appear at last to be in process of being stung into prompt and effective action with regard to priority ratings for demobilization purposes. Another factor that is of interest to our own industry is that numerous employees in various parts of the country are claiming the Governments temporary unemployment benefit on the score that,they cannot obtain emproyment for which they are fitted.
In my own opinion it must be clearly laid down that such unemployment benefit can only properly be claimed in the event of no employment being available for the applicant,of an identical nature to that which he or she enjoyed at the time when ordinary civil work was exchanged for work of a national charaeter. Whilst there is every credit due to those who have by diligence and application turned their wartime experiences to account by improving their capacity and qualifications, and whilst they should be encouraged in their efforts permanently to improve the nature of their activities as the result of such war-time training, it should be clearly understood that unemployment benefit is not available to the hairdresser's assistant who, after six months in a shell factory, claims? at the termination of his engagement, that he is entitled to unemployment benefit on the score that he cannot find employment as an engineer. Public rnoney,is already being spent quite lavishly enough in this nresent patching-up process. A firm hand is required to ensure that the nation's new-time generosity is not abused.