CIVIC LEAGUE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 244, 15 October 1935, Page 15

CIVIC LEAGUE.

NUMBERING OF HOUSES. The monthly meeting of the Civic League was held in the Overseas League rooms on Friday, when Mrs. Kenneth Gordon presided. Mrs. Gordon expressed gratification at the move the Government was making in; the direction of minimising the level crossing danger, and referred to the numerous elicits the league had made in this direction in past years. A motion was passed that a letter be sent to the City Council asking them to make correct and plain numbering on houses and shops compulsory, as the inconspicuous numbering of houses, and particularly of shops, was frequently a source of great inconvenience. A short - address .was then given by Mrs. E. M. Axford, who took as her subject "The Economic Problem: Is There a Solution?" It was greed, Mrs. Axford said, that kept us from economic security, which was the birthright of every man, woman and child in the world. As long as the profit motive was paramount in the social system people would not be able to realise their birthright. She propounded a scheme which was a modified form of capitalism and which was actually based on a profit motive, although a restrained and balanced one. One of the provisions of this scheme was for labour co-partner-ship, providing that labour should have a share in the ownership, management and profits, and this not by buying shares, but by the mere fact of workmanship. Other proposals in the scheme were for more sharply graded income taxes and much more onerous inheritance duties, and economic security for each person guaranteed by the State. The speaker expressed the opinion that no system based on the profit motive could ever be ideal, but until we were prepared to place moral issues above material ones we should have to tolerate some irjch system. She concluded with an appeal to her audience to look upon the earth as a trust, in which the Governments of the world w«te the trustees and the whole of mankind the beneficiaries.