AFTER THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 67, 16 September 1943, Page 7

AFTER THE WAR

MR. SCRIMGEOUR'S PLAN

Production for use and not for profit would cure the political ills of the day and solve the world's problems, said Mr. C. G. Scrimgeour, Independent, Wellington Central, when speaking at the Realm Hall, Hataitai, last evening. The hall was crowded, and the candidate was given an enthusiastic hearing. Mr. W. Dick presided. Dealing with the problem of reconstruction after the war, Mr. Scrimgeour said he did not believe in the term rehabilitation, which, correctly interpreted, meant a return to the status quo. He felt that our men who were giving their best in the forces here and overseas were fighting for something better than the old order which had produced the present chaos. They were fighting for a state of things where the men would have, more to hope for than a glorified No. 5 relief scheme, so vividly and unfavourably remembered from a few years ago.

Mr. Fraser had already circularised local bodies seeking an indication of how many men each could absorb after the war. "But," the speaker went on> "if that is all they are going to provide for our men coming back from the war, I will be in the lead of any band that will stand up and say: 'You won't put that one across us.'" There was no scarcity of commodities in the world, but there was a deplorable lack of comprehension on the part of modern politicians and Governments that the world was moving forward. Reputable scientists had estimated that the world could accommodatefiye times its present population and still have plenty for all; yet the people of New Zealand, one of the wealthiest countries in the world in natural resources, were trembling in the fear that as soon as the war was over there would be a slump and they would be short of the ordinary necessaries of life. This outlook was the outlook of a person who regarded the economic theory of Adam Smith as the word of God, and the steam engine of James Watt as the last word in mechanical construction. They failed to realise that the world had gone forward. That was the position in politics in New Zealand, where those in power were living1 completely in the past. The problem would be solved by production- for use instead of production for profit.