CURING UNEMPLOYMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20365, 20 September 1929, Page 12

CURING UNEMPLOYMENT.

Getting back to England after his visit to Canada, Mr. J. H. Thomas has spoken optimistically about the expected results of his efforts to encourage that Dominion to increase its imports from Britain. These efforts, he insists, are consistent with his declaration that there is no remedy for unemployment by artificial meang: "the real solution is to get customers." It would be easy to retort, if the sober earnestness of Mr. Thomas were not so wholesomely manifest, that customers cannot be got to any extent among the unemployed, and that as a comprehensive formula the proffered solution is itself no solution. Mr. Thomas, however, is sensibly aware that a comprehensive solution is not readily found: he is under no delusion about the classic feat of producing rabbits from top-hats. He went on a special mission, bent on strengthening the Canadian market for British manufactures and so increasing work for Britain's unemployed : and, as far as it goes, his idea is sound. But what can be profitably learned from his dictum that unemployment cannot be remedied by artificial means is that the frequent demands for a panacea of lightning-speed curative power betray their makers' ignorance. Any prevalence of unemployment, over and above what is seasonal in some occupations and more or less irregularly inevitable in others, cannot be removed by special artifice. A palliative may be applied by charitable aid—a term that includes all expenditure on non-productive work —but a cure involves the thoroughly economic application of both capital and labour, and this cannot be accomplished in a day. Least of all can it be achieved by envisaging the State as a fairy godmother with a magic wand. Paradoxical as it may seem, there is no remedy for unemployment but work, which again is a widely embracing term. The frank admission made by a Labour Minister specially charged with the practical handling of the problem is worth very serious heed. i