MECHANICAL DEVICES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20988, 26 September 1931, Page 12

MECHANICAL DEVICES.

Sir, —Many are the reasons put forward <o account for the world's unemployment. I contend that this mechanical age is responsible for 95 per cent, of it. Motorlorries and service-cars, with the help of private cars, are ruining our railways and also affect shipping on our coasts. Not many years back farmers had to breed horses to do the work of our towns that lorries and trucks do now. Horses required many drivers, stablemen and stables. They also required oats, bran, chaff, greenstuff, straw, etc., for food, hides for harness and saddles. They also used up a lot of labour in shoeing, wheelwright and blacksmiths' work. The farmer himself now uses oil or electricallydriven milking plants and can get, through 100 cows with only his wife and a lad to help him, and that sooner than six or eight good hands could do it before the advept of the engine. Thesei engines themselves are machine-made, and it work's back ad infinitum. One man now with an engine can do the work of from !5 to 25 that were required to do it before. This is approximately an average of one worker to 15 unemployed. It appears to me that it will continue so indefinitely, in spite of optimists' views to the contrary. The more men it takes to make these mechanical devices the more unemployment it eventually causes. Oil and electricity will, in time, become the curse of humanity. As some would like to see racing abolished, .1 think it is time we collected a few horses for our zoos. T.H.F.