A NEW STOCKTAKING

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 83, 9 April 1934, Page 8

A NEW STOCKTAKING

A non-party conference to deal with unemployment Avas recently advocated here, and the same suggestion is made coincidently in Australia by the Rev. Dr. P. A. Micklem. The coincidence is not strange, for the causes are similar. It is worth noting, however, that Di\ Micklcm's suggestion was prefaced by a sermon, certain portions of which aroused sharp criticism until he narrowed clown his case to a plea for a conference, "non-party and Australiawide, which would command the best brains of the Commonwealth in every field of its economic life," and which would make such disinterested recommendations as its survey of the tragic problem of unemployment dictated. When Dr. Micklem, in a letter to the Press, advanced that plea, his principal critic, Mr. E. C. Sommerlad, M.L.C., at once wrote endorsing it. Dr. Micklem declares that there is a wealth of voluntary service that would support a conference plan— service not now^being utilised. But the conference he suggests "would not be deterred by any regard for interests of a class or party nature from making such recommendations as, at whatever cost to the existing order, would alone be calculated to meet the need." In short, such a conference must start with an open mind. It would have no "don'ts" dictated by precedent but only those suggested by common sense.