RESPONSIBILITIES

Grey River Argus, 7 August 1937, Page 12

RESPONSIBILITIES

OF THE EMPIRE NX Labour Minister’s Broadcast [Special Correspondent] LONDON, July 6. While in Geneva, the Hon. H. T. Armstrong, New Zealand Minister of Labour, gave a 20-minutes- talk for the British Broadcasting Corporation on the subject “Responsibilities of Empire.” The address was relayed to London and distributed from Daventry on the 8.8.C.’s National circuit. Mr Armstrong’s remarks were as follows:— I propose to approach the question of Empire responsibility from a standpoint that tends to be overwhelmed by other considerations in these anxious days. I have in mind the social responsibility of a great international power such as the British Commonwealth of Nations, not only for the preservation of civilisation, but also for its advancement. New Zealand was represented at the Coronation on May 12 and. I was present with the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance. It was a ceremony that will long be remembered. It showed to a remarkable degree the amazing unanimity of the people behind the limited Monarchy, the Parliamentary system and the Democratic franchise.

Now Zealand, 12,000 miles away, is unanimous in its loyalty to the Commonwealth. Its. policy and its resources are. and will be, devoted towards helping Now Zealand and the whole Commonwealth to be a guide to the world. As a means to this end we desire to take every opportunity of co-operating- with the other nations of the Commonwealth by making full use of the machinery of the League of Nations and International Labour Organisation. The years of depression, whose outward signs are now .happily being effaced in most countries of the world, offered a greater throat to the continuance of the present order of civilisation than did even the world war. Its occurrence was an affront, and a provocation to the intelligence of mankind. People were starved because too much food was produced. They were deprived of clothing while the wool stores of the Dominions were full from floor to roof, and clothing machinery rusted in idleness. They had to go without decent houses and furniture while timber and bricks were available in plenty. And, what was socially the greatest tragedy of all. the men with the skill and the will to convert those materials to human use and comfort were prevented from 'working. They and their families had to live on the little which those with something could give to those with nothing. The stagnation of those wasted years is being repaired so far as material things are concerned. But their effect on the people who suffered the brunt (the working people) will be lifelong. The best that can be said of it is that if it stopped them from working, it stimulated their thinking. Until seven years ago, they nad accepted the cycle of economic booms and bursts as being almost as natural and unavoidable as the seasons of the year. But 1 do not believe that human society would tolerate for another five years the absurdities of the last depression. Throughout the world, there is growing realisation that man has a higher destiny than devoting the useful years of his life almost exclusively to the anxieties of trying to save sufficient rponey to protect his dependants, and his own old age, against want. If every person who is listening to-night were in the morning to receive a lett’er from some competent authority, guaranteeing that for evermore he need not worry about sickness and invalidity, about unemployment, or about his old age, what a mental weight would be lifted from the lives of millions. Who knows what changes in human outlook and what undiscovered forces for good would follow such a universal removal of those fundamental every-day fears which haunt the lives of most people.

The British Commonwealth of Nations has a vast field of administrative influence over its own peoples and territory. It. has a first responsibility to British populations of all colours and creeds, and through them can exorcise a powerful influence on the rest of the world. If the Commonwealth will free its own peoples of the weight of these personal anxieties for their economic future, it will bring into being a vast source of influence for the creation of a body of opinion so solidly against the destruction and barbarity of war, that the comparatively few personalities whose interests lie in the fostering of international hostility will be universally recognised as anti-social. The state of settled peace which I am convinced is ardently desired by the peoples of all races and nations, yet so elusively seems to escape the efforts of their statesmen, would have an - opportunity to establish itself naturally. My country. New Zealand, intends to make this experiment, and legislation tc that end has either been passed oils in course of preparation at this moment.

We have already provided for: A minimum wage for all workers (including farm workers) adequate for all the reasonable requirements of a man, his wife and three children; the marketing by the Government df all dairy produce for export and a payment to dairy farmers for their produce sue has will ensure them an adequate standard of living; maximum hours of work allowing of reasonable leisure to all, based generally on a 40-hour five-day week; payment of an adequate sum to all unuempolyed to whom work is not offered; increased old age, military and widows’ pensions and the introduction of new pensions in cases of permanent illness; a house-building programme to provide first-class houses for ah sections of the community; full Government control of central banking. During the next session of Parliament a bill will be introduced establishing a universal health and superannuation system which will be reflected in every home. It will provide for adequate means of livelihood, and for all necessary medical services, and will be more liberal than anything at present existing in any country. We are confident that we can achieve this measure of social justice without hardship to any section

of our community and without straining the resources of the Dominion. These and other social advances which I cannot to-night cover in detail represent a first instalment of New Zealand’s contribution to a social conception of the Empire’s responsibility. It has to be recognised that this is a day of movement towards the fulfilment of human destines, and in my view, it is one of the main duties of the State to encourage the development of individual talents along natural lines, and to ensure that every law-abiding member of society enjoys economic security. It is not my purpose to-night to discuss whether this can best be done under our present system or under some other. But perhaps I could, ill passing, point to the fact that the system which permitted the occurrence of both tne worst war and the worst depression in human experience has not been in any wa yamended to make impossible a recurrence of either event. If we happen at this or any other particular time not to be involved in a war or a depression, it is merely providential and is not a consciously arranged result. We call this “having a period of prosperity,” instead of a slice of luck. A change to some better order of things can be planned ahead, or the present system be shattered before a new one has been made ready. Which, will depend on how much attention we pay to the vitally important fact, that the change to something better is not only inevitable, but has already commenced, particularly in what are known as civilised countries, where its need is perhaps greatest. The Empire, as the largest power in the world, has a responsibility to see that the transition is allowed to spread within the province of Empire authority, in natural and orderly progress, and to remove with intelligent anticipation the dangerous obstructions that might arise from vested interests of all kind. We’ must, by a continuing process of selection, plan now for the preservation and adaptation of what is good in our civilisation, and discard gradually what is bad, lest the latter infect and destroy the whole. The power and influence of the British Commonwealth of Nations can be a decisive factor in this for the good of the people of the world who are now living, and of those who will fonow. I am not being merely polite when I say that ninety-eigm per cent, of those who are listening to-night, of all races and countries, are by nature neither avaricious nor bloodthirsty. It is my personal experience in many countries that the ordinary people in them are individually kindly and peaceful in their private relations. They do not really desire to rob their neighbour, by lawful means or otherwise, nor to kill the people of other nations or opinions. Yet, white overspread by this universal desire for peace, the world is kept hovering on the brink of war. There are those who excuse war as the expression of some characteristic which is inherent in human nature. They quote ancient history, philosophy and literature to show that the fundamental passions of greed and self-interest were always ingrained in human nature and are unchangeable. I simply don’t believe it. ' The fact is that both the old and the new civilisations called forth more of the worst than the best in human nautre. It is the system which has remained fundamentally immutable through history, and lias suppressed the full development of human nature in its better aspects. But recent years have seen an awakening to the fact that there is no divine or other warrant for some sections of humanity having to be born to work and die in poverty and want. The world of nature contains enough of the material good things of life for all,, and human ingenuity has solved the problem of production. The same ingenuity has also evolved our intricate system of preventing its equitable distribution. It cannot be beyond the same intelligence to make distribution as simple as production. New Zealand, the most distant of the Empire’s Dominions, is already tackling the job as far as its own people are concerned. It is peaceably, but as quickly as possible, re-building a new social and economic structure around the old in such a way as to cause the least inconvenience during the rebuilding operations. It cannot wholly succeed unless the standard of living of people of all colours and creeds in other nations of the British Commonwealth rises also. If each member of the Commonwealth will put its own house in order, as New Zealand is endeavouring to do, it will offer to the rest of tne world an example of economic remodelling, that will show the way out of the present problem of trying to get smooth running from an obsolete economic machine which rattles in every joint