UNEMPLOYMENT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 18 June 1931, Page 8

UNEMPLOYMENT

(To the Editor)

Sir, —I have read Mr L. Cotton s suggestions, re the above vexing subject, in last Saturday evening’s issue: First, that those who are in a position to do so be asked to pay the next levy in advance, and, second, that the Government appeal to the people of the Dominion for subscriptions, from those who can afford it., such money to be placed at the disposal of the unemployment board in the usual way, and so on. Mr Cotton, out of his goodness of heart, no doubt meant well. But there is another side to the unemployment question. Suppose, for argument’s sake, that everybody paid the levy in advance for the next two years and that ten times the amount was received in donations from other directions. At the end of those two years, what would be the result? I maintain that there would be more unemployment and poverty than there is at present. To nurse the unemployed is to manufacture more. Why should there be unemployment to-day in a land like New Zealand? Compare the conditions of life in this country'now with, say, fifty years \pgo. Why is if that, with all our modern advantages in science and machinery, we are not Jiving in a paradise, with all the necessaries of life in abundance? New Zealand has enough land to carry ton times her present population. Her hidden mineral j wealth and her agricultural possibilities are enormous. Her birthrate is low. j Why should there ho unemployment and I poverty in a country so rich, with only ‘one million and a half of population? lAn expert American financier, while itravelling through New Zealand, rC--1 marked that the millions paid aim unity J to America for motor vehicles could not | possibly spell anything but disaster. The people of New Zealand are simply motor car drunk, picture, show drunk—in fact, luxury drunk! Nor the last twenty years the commands and the demands of a certain section of the working classes would have ruined any industry in creation. If a mine manager looks sideways at a miner, it was “Down tools, boys,” even when they were making better wages than the best of tradesmen. The shipping of New Zealand was controlled by wharf labourers and firemen. Domestics also considered that they had a perfect right to flourish the whip of authority. Huge business concerns were paralysed by labour demands. Now that the boomerang has rebounded and hit those who threw it, they, the culprits, immediately expect the Government and the thrifty jto shoulder the whole responsibility. It | can’t be done. It is all very well to j help a lame dog over a stile; but we ! have a right to ask what made the dog lame. Wo hear quite a. song about the !ten per cent, cut in wages; miners are going to strike, Civil servants are going to paint- the Dominion red, etc. But why all this fuss In reality, it is, .as our Premier expresses it, “only a nominal drop.” The cost of living, compared with five years ago, is more-than ten per cent, cheaper. The trouble is that the “Sports” of this country have created a more extravagant, standard of living and they do not relish the idea of making the least 'sacrifice. You cannot get more out of the bucket than is put into it. The country cannot pay what her people do not earn. We also hear a lot about the right to live. Certainly, every man has a right to live, but onlv if he is justifying his existence and earning his space on earth. But he does not have the right to disorganise and interrupt society, law and order, by demanding the other fellow’s cake when he has j thrown his own overboard. Even under civilised conditions, the law of the survival of the fittest cannot be ignored. There should bo no room for failures. The only way to teach the incompetent is to. compel him to strive. ■ If a man has health and strength and refuses to do his bit as thousands have done it in the past, then I say he should have the right to starve! In this good old world of ours, our needs are few; but, in these modern times, it seems that our wants are very many. People of this Dominion, on the whole, don’t deserve sympathy, until such time as more of the essentials of life and less luxuries are manufactured. It is only hard times and suffering that will bring the thriftless and the over-indulgent to their senses. Where'would the people of New Zealand have landed if there had been a continuance of the luxury and extravagance of the past few years The few who are willing to work but are unemployed through no fault of their owii, should be helped and pitied; but how many today would be “hard up” if they had been tolerably thrifty in the past? Eliminate the waster and the unemployment question becomes a mere bagatelle.—l am, etc., LES. SPORT. Nelson, ,15th June.