USEFUL WORKERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21279, 5 September 1932, Page 9

USEFUL WORKERS

MINORITY IN THE WORLD VIEWS OF PROFESSORS > „ LONDON, Sept. a The British Association has ascertained that only 15 per cent of mankind is usefully working, and that the remainder are occupied in unnecessary trading. Professor Miles Walker suggested today that the Government should found an experimental, voluntary, self-support-ing .colony under the auspices of scientists, engineers and economists in which an estimate could be made of the standard of life which the average inhabitant could obtain ,if he worked well, aided by the best machinery. Not a quarter of those at present engaged in retail distribution were needed. Vested rights were continually interfering with the lowering of prices consequent on the development of science.' Parliament was filled with incompetents who were unable to solve an equation with two unknown terms much less complicated problems with many unknown terms. The procedure was antiquated and a business conference could reach sounder decisions in a fortnight than the House of Commons could reach in an entire session. ' Struggle lor New Equilibrium Prdfessor E. D. Forrester said it was arguable that Britain must recognise that the traditional dependence on a large overseas market was no longer feasible. The struggle for a new equilibrium involved increased' dependence on the home market or on those I overseas markets where characteristic British productions hold the price. Britain faced a tariff larger in proportion to her trade than any country except Germany. Trade could be improved if overseas markets were studied and* analysed, and distributive organisation developed, enabling British firms to keep in closer touch with the sale of goods overseas. _ - • • The world was tending, for many • industries, to become a domestic market and must be cultivated With the same care and methods as were applied within the national frontiers. The redistribution of markets was a normal incident of trade history. Britain's problem was to work her way, through the new equilibrium of foreign sales, to a new distribution of' industries. Migration of Labour and Capital Professor J. Coalman, professor of imperial economic relations, London University, said an organised scheme of migration, of labour and capital to start' new industries or to extend the old would go a long way toward remedying the present imperfections of population and industrial distribution in the Dominions. He emphasised the great increases in the population of Southern and Eastern Europe, and tlioso still greater of India and Japan, whereas the populations of Britain and Germany were decreasing./ The Western races controlled a large part of vacant land and meant to do so more rigidly in the future. , Canada and Australia could and ought to absorb all British emigrants. " Every year insects destroy enough Empire food to feed 45,000.000 people,"' declared Sir Arthur Hill, director of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, who emphasised the need of a larger army of scientific workers."