ABSTRACT
The average of unemployment during the four years of the Second National Government has been higher than the average of any other four years in British history. It is right, therefore, that this Government should be judged by the spirit in which it approached this terrible problem. The First National Government had to deal with the unsound financial condition of the system. The cost of unemployment relief was one of the chief causes of the financial crisis of 1931. Even in 1930 the situation was so serious that the Labour Government appointed a Royal Commission to go into the matter. A special Unemployment Assistance Board of seven members was set up, with very large powers, to administer the system. Two years passed before the Second National Government introduced the Unemployment Act, which tried to put the new system on a sound basis. This Act made provision both in regard to the insured workers and the recipients of transitional benefit.
