AN URGENT QUESTION

Evening Star, Issue 21570, 16 November 1933, Page 10

AN URGENT QUESTION

METHODISTS DISCUSS UNEMPLOYMEKT PROPOSALS TO GO BEFORE GOVERNMENT The problem of unemployment was dealt with, very fully in a report submittedl to the Methodist Synod this morning by a special committee which had been set up to go into all aspects of the position and submit constructive proposals. The report was presented by the Rev. L. B. Neal© in the following form: — THE SPIRITUAL SIDE. “ It is one of the hopeful signs of the times that men are looking to the churches for leadership on moral, social, and international questions. Challenges are being issued to the churches to take the lead on this or that question. The church has its limitations but it is by no means impotent and should bestir herself to exert her moral influence. The world needs a new spirit even more than guidance. The committee feels that it is only by the full surrender of the individual and the church to God that our dominion can be led to find a true and full life in things material as well as spiritual. It may well be that by a possession of this new spirit, will emerge economic illumination. “ The church fails to speak with one voice. No one person lias authority to-speak for all sections of the church, but it is possible for the church in' its corporate capacity, to enunciate great guiding principles and to call on politicians, economists, and others to show how those principles can be best applied to the body politic. The whole church—and the Methodist Church in particular—must give evidence that the unemployment problem is only part of a much larger problem which the church in the past has failed to fully realise. The chiirch must seek to Christianise the nation by proclaiming the Gospel, recognising that it contains a Christian ethic, which involves an acute sense of stewardship, and the immediate' operation of the law of love. “ We need to recognise that we are living in a new economic era in which changes arp taking place continually. The social conscience will have to be awakened, not by a mere passing of resolutions, but by the educational activity of individual Methodists, as units of the church, who think and inspire to action ahead of events. As a church we must again intelligently consider the implications for modern industrial and commercial life of its teaching of the supreme value of man. It must .take to heart the teaching of Christ concerning the sin of covetousness, the practice of justice and equity towards all and the duty of fellowship in “ giving and receiving.” THE PRACTICAL SIDE. “ Relief work has resulted in a loss of morale as tragic as hunger. The church is convinced that the public mind has not paid sufficient attention, nor yet been fully aroused to this aspect of the present position. It is the duty of the church to rally the community to the support of any practical solution of the present problems, and to press for immediate action. “ We urge the institution of a compulsory national insurance fund, believing that this will be a material step toward mitigating, the evils of unemployment. “ We regard the present rate of relief pay as inadequate for individual needs. “We urge the speeding up of the Government’s policy of small allotment settlements, and recommend that Crown lands in suitable districts be made available for bee-farming, and that young people leaving schools might he usefully instructed and employed in such work. “ While, as a church, we are opposed to the present system of compulsory married men’s camps, which involves the weakening of normal family life, we urge that where the Government considers such camps necessary, standard wages be paid. “ We recommend that youths from sixteen to eighteen years of age be exempt from the unemployment levy of a shilling in the pound, and that the assessment of 15s per week for hoard is excessive and be reduced to 10s per week. , “ The question is mainly an economic one. Pre-war economic theories and practices were based on the fact of a problem of scarcity. To-day’s problem is one of plenty, due mainly to the ever-increasing machine production. The economic problem of to-day is not to relieve poverty, but to distribute abundance, not to cure unemployment, but to distribute leisure. There is no cure for unemployment in a world which progressively passes on its work to machines. The solution of the problem is to get the plenty of production distributed to all. At present our monetary system operates in such a way as to cut down our purchasing power as we increase our productive power. “ Synod, therefore, respectfully asks the Government : (1) Is it not time it recognised that unemployment _is caused bv the greater use of machinery? (2) Is it not a fact that daily, more uses are being found for machinery in the production of wealth from office to delivery van, and even in our own homes and domestic services? (3) Is not this change over from hand to machine cheaper and more satisfactory? (4) Are we not running onr business on a financial system that grew up under hand labour conditions, and is quite incapable of dealing with the unlimited wealth that can now be produced by machinery? (5) Are we to bum our machines and hang our inventors ; or can a Government he found, a finance be devised, that shall satisfy commonsense, and give us all an opportunity to earn a living and a reasonable time to enjoy life in this wonderfully beautiful New Zealand? “ Synod therefore respectfully requests the Government to appoint a committee to consider these all-import-ant questions, and to favour the president of the Methodist Church with a copy of the committee’s findings' and regard it as a, matter of urgency.” The Chairman (the Rev. H. E. Bellhouse) said that the report > certainly represented action on positive lines, and showed that the church complied with the idea that it should give a lead. The report was adopted.