The old dole queue has gone: the benefit is now paid by mail. The unemployed are thus kept isolated from one another and cannot organise easily into an effective pressure group.

The tangle of the bureaucracy is such that people are discouraged from applying, and those who do frequently lose their morale, letting their application lapse. As always this problem is most severe among the least educated and articulate. The bureaucratic machinery comes under greater and greater pressure as unemployment mounts. Administrative foul-ups become common and "many people eligible for benefits are denied them or suffer uneccessary delays.

Relief workers and those on special work are spread throughout the work force. Although this may seem to be admirable as it helps protect the dignity of those affected, it also serves to disguise the fact that large numbers are engaged in relief work. Often only the worker himself and his boss know the circumstances of his employment.

Government policy is aimed at defusing potential political embarassments rather than confronting areas of the greatest need. Students are a case in point. The directive for the student work programme came straight from the Prime Minister's department. Students, a potentially well organised group, have been quietened by a million and a half dollar subsidy.

Another example of the same technique, though not nearly as effective, was the fiasco when the Department of Labour was moved into Todd Motors behind the unions' backs. When it became obvious that the mass layoffs at Todds were going to attract significant publicity, a special work scheme was quickly set up specifically to absorb Todd employees, ignoring those already unemployed in the area.

Many of the worst affected do not come up in the statistics. Second family income earners, usually women, and school leavers under the age of 16 are discouraged from registering. Though they can if they are willing to work in excess of 30 hours a week, the excercise can only be viewed as pointless. They cannot get any benefit and the Labour Department's job placement service must therefore give them a low priority.