WHAT ALTERNATIVE?

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 91, 14 October 1926, Page 15

WHAT ALTERNATIVE?

(To the Editor.)

■'. Sir,—This country has reached a stage in its development where the question of its secondary industries must soon pass from the sphere of newspaper controversy to; that of practical politics. By infmigrrition and the technical training of our sons and daughters we have created an industrial community, which will of course increase as time goes on. This is a stark fact which should ever be kept in mind by those whom in theLr anxiety for the welfare of our primary, are indifferent to the fate .of'our secondary industries. It seems to me that the whole question revolves • round this industrial population. With all our present secondary industries we still have our acute unemployment problems. r The Government and local bodies can not long endure the strain or' supporting. emergency . works which are notoriously uneconomic., ,

If secondary industry is suppressed, what is to be done with its labour Our primary industries cannot absorb it, even if it were economic to utilise trained industrial labour for agricultural purposes. There will be no additional demand on the distribution side, as that service is already .fully provided for. What then can be done with.this surplus? It must eat, it must live, and, above all, it will vote; for which party is fairly obvious, but what party can do anything once our industries are gone?' There is but one expedient left, the "dole." It is too late to talk of prosperity based solely on primary agricultural production. To attempt to put this into operation, logically, it will be necessary tot—(1) Abolish our Customs duties, collecting the revenue thus relinquished from the primary productions ani. buying our requiremneU in the cheapest markets irrespective of the conditions under which they are produced (sweated or otherwise). (?) Deporting our secondary industrial labour, incidentally reducing the primary producer's home market. (3) Pro--hibiting immigration of all but agricultural labour.

I gravely question whether any Government would" resort to these mewurea. We owe far too much money for one thing. Yet they seem to be the only logical alternatives to a policy of protecting our secondary industries to a' point where their development will render them a vital factor in the national prosperity.—l am, etc., LOOK AHEAD.