The Urgent Problems

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 35, 4 November 1933, Page 20

The Urgent Problems

“It is open to serious doubt whether through a long period of unemployment we may not do as much harm as good in providing only places of social entertainment. If nothing but amusement are provided it will tend inevitably to encourage the habit of drifting through life whilst the skill which is the craftsman’s chief asset wastes away. lam convinced, and a great many students of social questions are convinced, that we are going in the future to have a rather rapid increase in the amount of time which people have to fill in. Then comes the question of the distribution of the time—whether some have to work all the day and some not at all, or whether the spare time is to be spread over all the citizens. “Social progress has largely taken the form for a long while past of a steady development in popular leisure, and we have come to the stage when there is need to help people to develop activities, interests, and hobbies of their own. “After all, one of the hardest things about these periods of unemployment is the sense that it cannot help bringing upon a man that he seems not to be wanted. Society has no niche for him, has no call upon him for bis services. If we can find ways in which, none the less, he can still be of service in those channels which are parallel to the main channel of industry we can to some extent remove that horror from unemployment.”—Dr. Temple. Archbishop of York.