DISTRIBUTION PROBLEM

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 47, 23 August 1930, Page 13

DISTRIBUTION PROBLEM

(To the Editor.) Sir, —To my mind there seems to be a fundamental dishonesty behind _ a policy which keeps people's attention fixed on tho problem of distributing employment when the real problem is that of distributing goods and leisure. After careful consideration, I am convinced each country affected must adopt its own remedy without any appeal to others. There seems' to bo a new movement in world economy. It looks as if in the near futuro every portion of the globe will have to maintain its own primary and secondary industries. There is no over-production ot goods. • There is under-production of money, the withdrawal of bank credit, the deflation of tho currency, bringing about the triangle of impotence, unemployment, under consumption, and a hunt for markets. For a hundred years Great Britain has been mainly a manufacturing country, but the time is approaching when Britain will, have to rid herself of a largo section of her population or adopt the fallacious remedy suggested by your correspondent "Scrutator" and turn them into rural producers like Franco or Italy to enjoy the highest standard of ignorance with the lowest standard of living. Thousands of people in Paris carry on more than one trade, and tho working hours for tho second, are nominally the leisure hours from the first. One.°* the most distressing results in the fall of the value of the franc to the small man in France, who has never yet understood it, has been instead of obtaining proportionately higher wages ho has tried to make both ends meet by doing something else in his off hours. Tho leisure which used to be the Frenchman's most treasured luxury has passed only to bo filled up with other work, and both tho ordinary work and the extra work are underP aid.-lam,etc, ICONOCLAST<