AMERICA'S ILLS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 206, 1 September 1933, Page 7

AMERICA'S ILLS.

RECOVERY REMEDY. SIMPLE PRESCRIPTION. 2,000,000 Workers Absorbed By Code Scheme. HIGHER PAY, SHORTER HOURS. (United P.A.-Electric Telegraph-Copyright) (Received 11.30 a.m.) WASHINGTON, August 31. Recapitulating the August activities in President Roosevelt's drive to stimulate employment and purchasing power before the winter sets in, the National Recovery Administration chieftains to-day found that 18 permanent codes, and 240 temporary trade pacts had been approved, bringing upwards of 10,000,000 workers under shorter hours and a higher minimum wage. "Our recovery plan was designed on the sinple principle that 100 men, earning 10 dollars each, will spend more money than one man earning 1000 dollars, and 99 men earning nothing. That is all it is. We have no intention of making business walk the goose step in a strait jacket." In these picturesque words, General Johnson finished a stirring address at Boston, where he went from Chicago in his first big "speaking tour," "to sell recovery to my fellow citizens."

Ho added: "There is no more sense in starving midst plenty now, than in 1776. Our agriculture is flat, the back of our industry is paralysed and all because we have been lending to 'busted' countries money to buy our goods. This has laid the basis.for a four-year headache from which we are to-day emerging." General Johnson claimed that 2,000,000 people were already re-employed, increasing the country's payroll by 30,000,000 dollars weekly. A demand by organised labour for an even shorter working week than is embraced in the national recovery codes was added to-day to the stupendous task of the administrator. Mr. William Green, president of the American Federation of Labour, asked that the National Recovery Administration working week of 40 hours be reduced to 315, or even 30. Some 2,000,000 workers had been absorbed back into industry since the drive began, but he said that there were still 11,000,000 idle.