PRODUCER AND CONSUMER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 18, 22 January 1931, Page 6

PRODUCER AND CONSUMER.

DISTRIBUTION PROBLEMS,

(To the Editor.)

Mr. N. G. Gribble seems to derive somo grim satisfaction from his claim that this country, and the Unemployment Board in particular, is at last arising out of its mental lethargy and realising the soundness of his society's policy, i.e., "by every possible means to increase and enlarge the returns from the soil." Might I ask him who is going to consume the increase? Every agricultural country in the world is, by research and specialisation, increasing per acre and per man the returns from its soil, and even in industrial England the dissatisfaction with .the increasing burden of the "dole" has forced the Government there to seek another scheme of unemployment relief and an influential host of English writers are insistently directing attention to the thousands of acres of fertile undeveloped land as a means of absorbin productively a portion of the unemployed at Home. It is not societies to urge increased production that are wanted in this country, or the world in general; it is societies to specialise in distribution with a determined policy to 'bring within the reach of a greater number of people the increased products of modern invention. That, I submit, is the only possible way to alleviate our own or any other country's unemployment problem. H.W.