PESSIMISM AND DEPRESSION

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 88, 11 October 1921, Page 2

PESSIMISM AND DEPRESSION

TO TIE ERITOR.

Sir, —In these difficult times, -when workers of all classes are having by no means an. easy .task to reconcile income and expenditure, it is nauseating to hear the" incessant "talk that is'poured-forth by the officials of the Fanners' Union. The emphatic utterances of those men reveal remarkable ignorance of all the important social subjects, and a very careless use of 'statistics, the measurement of social phenomena. We are informed that the staff of one State institution has increased by STper^ cent., and the staff of another by 12 per cent.; but there is no mention of the period of comparison or the circumstances surrounding the fact compared. What do these figures mean? An increase of 100 per cent', may represent an advance from 1 to 2; it. may represent an advance from 1000 t0.2000. Such are the characteristics of figures. Moreover, an increase in the-staff of one branch'of the public service might not mean a corresponding increase in the total number employed; it might mean- transfers from one branch to another. It is surely obvious that without a knowledge of the fact, we can draw no valid inference fro mthe figures so loudly quoted by the executive of the Farmers' Union. Superficial study and official' statistics,: followed by hasty and sweeping generalisations, will cany us nowhere. To those anxious to use statistics fairly, and to draw valid conclusions from the figures, the advice is:— "Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring,..There shallaw draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again." It is well known that when produce values began to decline, the wealthy farmer was the first to complain. The farmer operating in a small way is not interested in the Farmers' Union, and he is too busy to make public complaints about the slump, which most thinking persons regarded as. an inevitable result of the great war. I may add, moreover, that the wailing that has come from the Farmers' Union executive since the world depression overtook New Zealand has done more harm to the Dominion, than any other circumstances in its recent history. Among all people who are unselfish enough to adopt the communitj i>oint of view, there is a (recognition that -wealth getting .and wealth spending are but means to an end—the greatest" good of the greatest number. Confidence and efficiency are needs of the moment. Mr. Colbeck talks about j the "verge of catastrophe," and Mr. Duxfield cannot undeiatand the optimism of the Prime Minister. The fact is that Mr. M-assey has a broad enough outlook to realise that a condition prejudicially affecting trade. and production in this country is the lack of coiTßdence among buyers, sellers, bankers, investors, and statesmen. The times are bad; there is" no doubt about that, and they may become worse; but confidence and efficiency must be the watch words. Pessimism, depression, "scare-mongering," destructive criticism—the characteristics "of the Farmers' Union—are doing grave damage by handicapping the Government of the country and restricting credit facilities.

The careless use of statistics by the talkers of the Farmers' Union is so obvious that it is almost a work of superorogation to remark that the per capita taxation is an average; that is, a simple arithmetic mean subject to all the disadvantages familiar to the statistician and economist. Such, an average covers up a multitude of sins. The average taxation may be £100 per family per annum,- but this average could be derived from, say, three families payingeach approximately £100, or from families paying £10, £20, and £270. Our taxation system was devised partly with the idea of securing a redistribution of wealth and preventing the land from being aggregated into the possession of prominent members of the Farmers' Union. Thus, it is that before the per capita taxation can be understood, we require to |<now tlio "dispersion above the average." ' ' The outburst of (he Farmers'. Union, self-appointed reformers of, the ''social order! remind me of Hillaire Belloc's oyiticKm of Ihe "practical man." In v famous passage that writes.1 declared:

,'lt is not very difficult to discern that the practical man in social reform is exactly the same individual as the practical man in other spheres, and is found suffering, from the same twin disabilities which stamp the practical man wherever found. These disabilities- are an< inability to define his own first principles and inability to follow the consequences of his own, actions. Both these disabilities arise from one simple and deplorable form of impotence the inability to think."—l am,, etc., ,i , r, DIGGER. llth October.