UNEMPLOYMENT RECONSIDERED

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LXI, Issue 16, 27 February 1940, Page 3

UNEMPLOYMENT RECONSIDERED

The real burden of unemployment is not the financial burden, though many still believe that it is, writes Mr J. Middleton Murray. The rc^l burden is different, and far mo._ oppressive, not merely to the man with social imagination, but to society as a whole. For whereas thit huge saving of the labour formerly required to keep society alive might be spread throughout the commonwealth to which it in fact belongs, it is concentrated in this unfortunate body of men ahd women. If we could look at it quite simply, we should see that the situation is fantastic. Suppose a small society of a hundred men and "women live in some sequestered part of the earth, growing their food, feeding their flocks, spinning, weaving; suppose a small Steam-engine is introduced into the community. Would it .not be entirely monstrous if ten of the members whose previous work in pumping, sawing, threshing and the like was now unnecessary were just condemned to do 'nothing at

all? it would not be tolerated either by- the unfortunate ten, or the remaining 90. The tefn men would be set to a new job. They would build and decorate a school or a church, or a reading-room, or a theatre. In other words, the unemployment created by the introduction of that steam-engine would 'be welcomed as a great gift, and would be promptly turned to the increase of the true health and wealth of the community. And so we see what unemployment really is, namely, for liberation of human capacity for the further development and enrichmeht of the life of society as a whole.