CONDITIONS AFTER THE WAR.

Manawatu Times, Volume XL, Issue 14096, 3 January 1919, Page 7

CONDITIONS AFTER THE WAR.

BIG DEMAND FOE. OUE FOODSTUFFS. BRITAIN’S GREAT PROBLEMS. Writing to a New Plymouth friend, a former member of the literary staff of the “Taranaki Daily News,” who is now holding an inrportant position in London, says:— I do not pretend to be a prophet on what things are going to be like after the war. but I cannot see that food is going to be scarcer and high-priced on this side of the world then, because the fall strength of our mercantile marine will be available to ship all the produce waiting in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. For a very long time all our merchant ships, and, very possibly, a very big portion of our Navy, will be engaged in taking overseas troops home, and as every effort will be made to get the men home as quickly as possible.. ships should be coming out to New Zealand . fairly frequently, and just as often as they go out with troops they will be available to return with food. I know that for military and other reasons it was proposed that the Australians and the New Zealanders should demobilise in Egypt, but against this it has been pointed out that if this were done it -would tie up a certain number of ships for purely military work, whereas if we were demobilised from England all the ships will bo able to work troops one way and return with food. Another reason why I think England will quickly have her breakfast tables made more generous is the remarkable impetus that the war has given to local production. One might almost say that England has come to realise that land can be used for other purposes than to simply provide birds to be shot by people who have nothing better to do with their time. At present comprehensive legislation is being put in hand to develop agriculture, and although the ideal of some that England w-ill one day be self-supporting is very far in the future there is no doubt that after the war she will be more capable of feeding her people than ever before. And then it will only be by gradual steps absorbing a long time that the high standard of wages will come down, so that the people should really not bo badly off. Where I think England will find her most difficult problem wdll be in the distribution of surplus labour caused by demobilisation of thousands of men from the Army. Woman labour has made a wonderful place for itself in this country, and it is not conceivable that they are suddenly going to drop out of the industrial life of the country for many years, and then only by a very gradual process. Women who are employed on munitions and other tasks which the war alone has provided for them will, of course, have to go back to whereever they came from, but do you expect that employers who have found girls efficient clerks and who do not earn the same salaries that have to be paid to the men arc going to dispense with these girls? Those competent to study this problem tell us that the girls do not want to go back to their homes because they have found life in the city more interesting and they are more independent. The employer finds he can get on just as well with girls as he did with men, and, besides, he know*s veiy well that men. wlio liave been, tliree or four years in the Army are not going to be the same for office work. Of course, employers will be in honour bound to employ men who have risked everything to protect the employer and his business. and I don’t suppose there is any girl who would deliberately stand in the way of any of these men, but it remains to be seen if these factors will clear the problem up. But, whatever may come of this, I think it is highly likely that there will be a very general inclination for men to emigrate to the Dominions, but exactly how New Zealand will be able to deal with such emigration will depend on how rapidly she will be able to absorb her own men, and w-hen that is done on what possibilities there will still exist for new population. It is the aim of the land legislation at present being worked out here to make it easy for ex-soldiers to be put on the land, but I do not think this will altogether turn the thoughts of the men away from the colonies.