REDISTRIBUTION OF LABOUR

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 25 June 1931, Page 7

REDISTRIBUTION OF LABOUR

OVER-PRODUCTION ' Discussing the causes of depression and unemployment in an address before the English-Speaking Union in London, Professor 0. M. W, Sprague, economic adviser to the Bank of England, said that increased efficiency of production necessarily implied -a special increase in the production of things for which there, was an elastic demand, at a price. There was not an elastic demand for more wheat, for instance, or for cheaper cotton cloth, assuming that people had larger incomes to expend. Unfortunately, however, our industrial system tended, whenever! there was an increase of efficiency, to expand the kind of production to which that efficiency applied. leaving the distribution of labour as before, , and thus to bring about over-production: whereas what was required was that, with increased efficiency, labour should, depart from occupations for whose products there was l not an elastic demand, and should be absorbed into’others. We did not attempt such transferences partly because of trade union restrictions, but even more because of the policy of employers in not endeavouring to develop the sort of occupations that would absorb additional labour. To take an example, there was hardly anything in the world for which there was a more clastic demand than somewhat more commodious housing. Here was a possible way of absorbing the labour set free by increased efficiency in the production of things which the great mass of people already had in sufficient quantity. But it was precisely in this occupation that one found the greatest difficulty in reducing costs to a level which would permit the people ,to live in somewhat l more commodious dwellings. The one-minute breakfast—Red Diamond O-tis—pre-digested oats, pure, packed in airtight containers.