ADDRESS AT QUAKER CONFERENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 112, 14 May 1934, Page 14

ADDRESS AT QUAKER CONFERENCE

Declaring that fundamental changes in tho social structure must* De effected, and that quickly, if the present anomaly of unemployment and privation in a world' where wealth abounds -is to, cease, Miss-Lucy P. Morland,'of*.LoAdon, concluded an address, on. '.''Unemployment : and Plenty", at the Friends' House on Saturday night.

The speaker based her remarks on the 1933 Swarthmore Lecture. After dealing with the history of humanitarian thought in-relation to industry, Miss Morland pointed out tho difficulties encountered by employers who had ,to meet competition due to sweated labour. Common consent or legal enactment were1 necessary if both employer and employee were to.be protected. A feeling of remedial responsibility had led in'recent years to reform's affecting" the lives and conditions of factory and other workers, but the spirit of justice was still unsatisfied. "There is still a feeling abroad," said Miss Morland; "that thero is individual blame attachable to the unemployed. But such ah attitude is utterly unjustifiable. We owe to all a good life. There is abundance for all, and fewer people than-ever are required for the production of enough commodities to enable all to live well.", _

Whatever.temporary measures of relief arc adopted, the speaker held that no local solution of tho problem would be a final one. Experiments had been made* State and municipal enterprises had paved the way for more uniformity, and there was an increasing breaking down of contrasts between employer and employee. We must, get into our minds, she said, the belief that fundamentalj changes were inevitable. We needed to get rid of our economic Bhibboleths; shibboleths were as bad in economics as in religion. We had to be prepared to face difficulties during a transition period, and we must, test our theories and apply them to the total situation. The chief difficulty in tho way of the solution of tho problem lay in a fear of change and a lack of willingness to work for it.

"Eiches," Miss Morland said, "must not bo allowed to give power over the lives of others. Payment for production is no longer a satisfactory principle. More than men neeel for a good lifo can bo produced ami a surplus of labour still be available. The immccliato task is to change our own thought on the problem of plenty and to seek to change tho, thought of our neighbours."