COMING PROBLEM

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 40, 16 August 1944, Page 6

COMING PROBLEM

POST-WAR .INDUSTRY

TRENDS OF DEVELOPMENT

In the period following the war em-' ploymcnt would resume its position as the greatest problem that would have to be faced, and that: problem was linked in the closest manner with increased production by industries and stimulation of consumption, said Dr. E. Marsden, secretary of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, in an address to the Wellington branch of the Economic Society of Australia and New Zealand last night on post-war trends in the industrial world. .: i /The, problem, which was not new, might be restated as the problem of how to operate our economy so as to provide continuous; full employment for all New Zealanders and immigrants able and willing to work for a living, said Dr. Marsden. One aspect, which he would deal with from a long-term point of view, concerned the trends of industrial development, because he had found on his return^to New Zealand recently from abroad considerable uncertainty among industrialists and -business men and too much hesitancy in embarking on-new ventures or the extension of existing undertakings. If there were to be full em-' ployment there must be the industries to provide that employment—primary, secondary, and tertiary. PLANS FOR EMPLOYMENT. A remarkable , publication called "The Winning Plans in the Pabst Post-war Employment Awards" had appeared in the United States, and he had just received a copy, said Dr. Marsden. All the plans emphasised the question of increased production and stimulation of, consumption. Apart firom revision of the tax structure, most of the plans emphasised and put forward suggestions for (1) removing some of the basic uncertainties which repressed the general level of, private expenditure, and 'particularly private capital expenditure; .(2) removing the powerful factors which discriminated against the assumption of risk in in-i dustry and business; (3) the provision of technical and economic information which would assist the industrial concerns, particularly the smaller ones, as a basis of expansion or indication of new projects and products. . Speakingof the changes in theproducts "of industry > and consumer demand, Dr. Marsden said there was no reason to believe that the vast potentiality for technological change, still unrealised in our. economic system, would not continue,, periodically only, he feared, to lift it to higher levels of activity. Those technological changes arose from the application of fundamental research and the results of that research had been accelerated during the past 25 years at a rate which the layman had difficulty in realising, but which had profound effect on our whole economic and social conditions. The rate was greater than in the previous 300 years, or the 2000 years be■fore that. ■ . .-■■■ "I venture to suggest," said Dr. Marsden, "that it is this non-realisa-tion which is at the basis of most of our present economic and social problems, in that it.has ushered in, almost too suddenly, an age whose characteristic is change at a manifold rate> and that we must now deliberately organise our industries and businesses for continuous progressive change, rather than aim at, or organise for, more stable conditions. ' Only in this way shall we stimulate higher levels of consumption, production, and employment. "______^____