ILL-CONSIDERED ECONOMY.

Evening Star, Issue 20987, 29 December 1931, Page 6

ILL-CONSIDERED ECONOMY.

Xo one‘will contest tlio fact that it is better for men to bo employed by private employers than under the various schemes of local bodies or the Government. The community as a whole has stood firmly by the principle that no one shall starve —that all shall live. The Government has decided that all shall work for such means of sustenance, and that the community shall pay, through taxes, special levies, or calls for charity; so that if, through wholesale economies on the part of individual employers, many men arc thrown into the ranks of the unemployed, the general burden is not lessened but made greater. An earnest appeal against ill-considered efforts at economy is made by Mr A. R. Galbraith, city engineer, in his annual report to the Christchurch City Council. He expresses the opinion that it is better to ration work than to dismiss largo numbers of men. He considers that the task of the Unemployment Board has become an almost impossible one through the wholesale simultaneous dismissals and retirements effected by the Government, local authorities, and private employers. These collectively have absolutely swamped the board’s endeavours. “ Thus the ill-considered and frantic efforts at economy hurriedly made under such circumstances resulted, as might only have been expected, in matters going from bad to worse, so that unemployment has increased by leaps and bounds.” Dismissals on so wholesale a scale have only gravely aggravated matters, and Mr Galbraith advocates the rationing of work, as far as possible, rather than creating yet more harmful conditions. Actions of this kind, which tend only to lower the general standard of living and production of a population, should be avoided, for if means that efficiency is sacrificed at the expense of a doubtful economy, by subtly increasing the burdens of the productive workers through their having to support those workers who, through no fault of their own, cannot obtain work, productive or otherwise. These men are therefore unproductive units in the body politic. “ This course, if persisted in, can eventually only mean the degradation and impoverishment of the race.” Mr Galbraith urges that the ideal to be aimed at under the present distress is to ease the exigencies of the situation by adjusting the difference between the cost of living and falling wages as closely as possible, so that the one can approximate to the other, at the same time rationing and grading workers so that they can earn sufficient to keep themselves properly according to their avocation. He even goes so far as to suggest that this might be achieved by a limited board of representatives from each side, with plenary power to control and regulate prices and wages as far as the necessaries of life are concerned. While on the general question, he emphasises the need of the Unemployment Board to concentrate on relief schemes of such a nature as to ensure that all moneys for relief purposes are spent on reproductive works, notable among which ho instances town planning.