Soulful Santa

Back in 1923 philosophic Frederick Head, father of five, stopped working. For twelve long years he has done nothing more strenuous than draw $8.50 every week from Britain's dole--in all some $5,000. Urged to attend free classes at a government school to learn a gainful trade, Mr. Head always replied: "I wouldn't waste my time in no school."

Not until last week, when Britain's new national Unemployment Assistance Board took over administration of the dole from local bodies, was it possible to do anything about Loafer Head. Surprised, resentful, Mr. Head suddenly found himself the object of the Crown's displeasure under the new regulation providing that it shall be criminal for dole drawers not to make "honest efforts" to get to work. Swift British Justice cracked down on Frederick Head with a sentence of one month at hard labor, and all over the British Isles dolesters abruptly began to look for work.

Chairman of the new national Board is that dry, efficient, but not unsympathetic civil servant who was Sir Henry Betterton up to Jan. 1. In the royal New Year honors he unobtrusively became a baron (TIME, Jan. 7). Last week Lord Betterton bustled about new quarters in Thames House in London, organizing a staff which will total some 5,000 dole administrators. Their job will be to see that jobless Britons between 16 and 65 whose earnings never averaged more than $25 per week receive the cash that is their due "as a matter of right and decency" providing they make bona fide efforts to get to work. This makes Lord Betterton the stern official Santa Claus of some 17,000,000 subjects of George V. Said Santa Betterton. "We are setting up no soulless machine. ... If the jobless man has been fortunate enough to save any money, he is not expected to consume his savings before being entitled to relief."

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