UNEMPLOYMENT.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 35, 25 January 1932, Page 11

UNEMPLOYMENT.

(To The Editor.) Sir, —A maddening sense of impotence infects those attempting to solve this problem. Cures, so-called, have poured in; thousands of professed “causes” have been advanced. Most of the cures are but palliatives; the majority of the root-causes but contributing factors. What is the cause of unemployment? No one causative agency, surely, but a multiplicity, the chief perhaps, being the maladjustment of production to consumption (quite likely the essence of the trouble;) the spread of industrialisation throughout the world; a host of economic disequilibria; badly coordinated divisions of labour; catastrophic economic dislocations; the temperamental vagaries of a highly complex and elaborate social aud financial apparatus. It is a well-known fact that those countries expressing a high standard of living show a corresponding high unemployment figure; those countries of a low.standard of life, a low figure. Seemingly, high production, great wealth, and no employment are incompatible. A point in illustration. In the Bavarian hills lived a peasant family, typical of many such-like There were three sons For generations their forbears had farmed their lands. They derived all they needed from the soil; ground by hand the grain they grew; made candies from the fat of their sheep; clothing from the wool; produced their own milk, butter, cheese, eggs, bacon and pork. They experienced, of course, good seasons aud bad. In the good they stored their surplus products against a lean time. But never were they without shelter or food, though their standard of life was primitive. Their implements were crude —no tractors, separators, etc. —but ploughs, yoked oxen, scythes, and human muscle. Unemployment, as we deem the term, was unknown; little cash passed their hands, but the necessities of life were theirs. And never were they up against our extraordinary paradox —suffering from lack of the fruits of the earth—because those fruits are too plentiful. Why not? Because they themselves were the producers and the consumers; the buyers and sellers; the employers ami the employees. They were able to produce and maintain those essential coordinations and contacts which have got beyond the control of modern industrialisation. And then the rising generation grew tired of its drab existence and migrated to Canada. One son took up land, the other two became farm hands, with this result: The fanner, with the aid of the latest scientific implements and labour-saving devices, produced to an extent undreamed of on his Bavarian land. But his responsibilities increased, his anxieties, his livelihood, be came more precarious, his monetary burdens greater. He had become a victim of forces beyond his control a producer for world markets. He was iu the toils of intricate and widespread economic influences while the two “farm hands” were dependent upon the success or otherwise of their employ-

crs for ths retention or loss of their jobs. The producer was no longer the consumer, the seller the buyer. In short, the Canadian farmer wm no longer his own market. Their Bavarian farm life had lieen self-sufficient, con trolled; there were the necessary ad justments—automatic, coordination of production to consumption; consumption to production. Their ••economic apparatus” represented a low standard of productivity, but essential and fundamental adjustments were within the control of their small community. World productive capacity has outstripped the rate of market expansion, and no automatic adjustment can possibly rectify the position. We must consciously regulate production to consumption—introduce a more efficient contact between producer and buyer. And plan nationally and internationally, for, unless were are careful, a national expendiency policy alone will result in dangerous international difficulties. And one thing is pretty obvious, i.e., the necessity to treat the rxits of economic maladjustmentss, not its branches. Of course, there are certain economic maladjustments outside financial causes, via., an increasing or decreasing demand for textiles, according to changing fashions; decreased demand for coal, following upon the use of oil and the development of water-power; “technological unemployment,” occasioned bv rationalisation, and so on.

But, whatever the nature of the trouble, it is very evident that matters will not right themselves of their own volition, that a laisser faire policy will be utterly ruinous, and cannot possibly produce any economic harmony. The nations’ markets must be intelligently co-ordinated —then will follow considerable co ordination of consumption to production. At the same time the international aspect of the problem must not he lest sight of. Of course, did we but pass a law forbidding absolutely the importation into New Zealand of anything whatsoever, we should be obliged to commission the labour of every man, woman and youth to supply our necessities We should absorb all available idle labour—the unemployment problem would be solved. A “blockade” also would achieve this end.. However, international ramifications are too increasingly complex to hope for relief in this comparatively simple manner. Industrialisation —a mechanical civilisation —is throwing upon the world, at an alarming rate, idle labour. And the dominant mood unemployment sets up is discontent, exasperation, desperation. with their political concomitant — Communism. Communism has, in many cases, derived its impulse from unem pleyment—just as tho National movement in Germany drew breath from the economic malaise. There are parts of the British Empire which eould bo peopled with British stock to the extent cf millions —Australia and Canada m particular. Nevertheless, at the present time economic and social difficulties militate decisively against interEmpire migration to any extent. Economic pressure is against it, just as economic pressure demands, for the nonce, a diminishing birth rate, which brings us to the question of birth-control —for unemployment and birth control cannot pos-iMv re dissociated. Birth control ,s considered the panacea par excellence. The effect on unemployment will undorbtedlj be decisive Unfortunat.e’y, that class which is adding chiefly to the unemployment burden is propagating the race most prolifically. But granted the immediate results, what of the effect on women themselves, and so the race? Borne very grave warnings have been sounded by noted women doctors. These doctors cannot be ignored—they speak with the voice of authority.—l am etc., G. HAMILTON FRASER. Havelock North, 23/1/32.