PROPERTY AND EMPLOYMENT
(To .lie Editor.)
Sir,—The sub-leader in your issue of Thursday last discussing the problem of the existence of some 40,000 urban unemployed workers, with the shortage of employees for farmers, discloses that ever-recurring impasse in reasoning which, in my opinion, arises necessarily from the erroneous phraseology in which the problem is stated.
The final end of anything is the allimportant governing factor, and the continual usage of the terms "unemployment" (the disease) and "employment" (the remedy) causes schemes to be born in officialdom, involving sut* sidised, free, or compulsory employment for some of the 40,000, none of which attempts to cure the real evil afflicting our unemployed, which is their state of propertyless, dependent existence. By the very concentratiye tendencies of our present economic system, employment as such continues to diminish, or, at best, to remain at a low level compared with the socalled prosperous times. So then, as the state of being propertyless (i.e., lack of homes, land, etc.) and dependent upon public taxation, constitutes the real disease which afflicts unemployed families, the only true remedy is property and independence. The unfinancial status of many farmers and others, though co-related, ia secondary, or rather, distinct, in so far as applied remedies are concerned; the almost absolute poverty of unemployed families being the most urgent problem in the State. Only by some good system of group settlements, combining primary and secondary industries sufficient to render each group as near self-sufficient as practicable,! can the propertyless and dependent I state of our unemployed be intelligently i attacked. Then we would witness a development of family life and industry, which would pave the way for a largely-increased population, which is the true wealth of any nation, because it is indispensable to its continued existence as a nation.—l am, etc.,
d. Mclaughlin.
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Bibliographic details
Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 23, 28 January 1936, Page 16
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302PROPERTY AND EMPLOYMENT Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 23, 28 January 1936, Page 16
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