DEMANDS OF THE AGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 129, 2 June 1936, Page 11

DEMANDS OF THE AGE

CHANGING CONDITIONS ADJUSTMENT PROCESS BUSINESS MAN'S ADDRESS

Some impressions of a recent tour of Great Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Canada, and the United States were given by Mr. J. T. Martin in the course of a short talk at the Wellington Rotary Club luncheon this afternoon.

"Nothing impressed me in my travels so much," said Mr. Martin, "as the realisation that every country I visited seemed to be adjusting itself to the new demands of the age, such as care of the unemployed, better homes and conditions for the worKers, higher wages, shorter hours, more leisure, free education, etc. "In this connection I might here give an excerpt from an address I heard in the Willard Hotel in Washington, where I was staying in October last year, and which is so symptomatic of the, times in which we live. The address was given by Dr. Edmund Walsh, the principal of a large Catholic college, and a man who has travelled considerably, and has written several books on Russia and world travel. "Speaking of Labour and Capital, Dr. Walsh said:

Labour is an indispensable partner j in the economic processes that have created national wealth; both groups are as it were journeymen of Nature, standing shoulder to shoulder m the same glowing forge of life; whether clad in overalls, or dinner jackets, both take a wage for their respective tasks, and hitherto Capital has paid

itself too high a wage.

"Another feature of the times is the manner in which Governments are more and more projecting themselves into commercial life today—due largely to the attitude of depressed industry and its tendency to lean on Governments for aid and protection. Onethird of the primary products of Great Britain are today under Government control, either in the form of subsidies to protect and foster production, or restrictions to reduce importations. Economic nationalism and restrictions to importations by Britain, Germany, France, America, and others nations have upset, not only their own economic life, but that of other countries, which had grown to be dependent on them for outlets for so much of their manufactured goods. Adjustments, therefore, are fast taking • place in every country to meet the changing conditions, and we in New Zealand are not without our own problems of adjustment." I Mr Martin referred to the observa-j tions of Sir John Russell, the great agricultural authority, on the progress of Denmark, and said that today the rural organisation and rural population of that country was the envy of the civilised world.