THE UNEMPLOYED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21803, 18 May 1934, Page 6

THE UNEMPLOYED

CHEERFUL IN ADVERSITY A , CARE FREE SPIRIT ■ LOOKING TO THE LAND BT ONE OF THE UNEMPLOYED No. 111. One remarkable thing is the obvious Cheerfulness of the unemployed in their obviously cheerless enough situation. Considering how desperately poor the great majority are, one would expect them to be gloomy and worried, fiercely resentful or sunk in apathetic despair. There are plenty like that—one cannot generalise. But the great majority do not. seem to be obsessed with their troubles. Glance at a group of relief workers and you see no more uuhappy faces than among the same number of the more prosperous. Men gathering for an unemployed meeting gossip about racing and football, art unions and politics more often than their personal problems. They swap hard-luck stories in a Matter of fact, even half-humorous, way. One man I know to be having a very hard time wound up cheerfully enough with, "The psalm says: 'The troubles that afflict the just in numbers many he.' I hope the rest of the verse will apply to us." One hears outbursts, but they are usually explosions of emotion, like swearing, and mean as little. A fiery Communistic speech will be cheered, but mostly in a half-chaffing way. In spite of their restless energy the Communists seem to be making few real converts.

The Micawber Philosophy

I have heard this praised as "the admirable, patience of the unemployed" to be counted to them for righteousness. But I am not so sure. I think it is more the spirit of Mr. Micawber than than of Mark Tapley. Micawber's philosophy is a joy in print, but not in real life, and I never could believe in his reformation. To face one's troubles in a spirit of cheery optimism is wholly admirable—if one is doing one's best to surmount them. But this "sufficient unto the day" spirit : s hardly that. It is significant, for instance, that a large number of relief ■workers seem able to find half-crowns regularly/ for art union tickets. "It gives us some interest in life." "It is a chance of escape, worth the sacrifice." But who pays?

"I leave my wife to do the worrying," I once heard a relief worker say, and the disposition to leave the worrying over the unemployed problem to others seems widespread among those most concerned. There are plenty of good brains among them, thinking out as well as worrying over the situation. But their influence seems relatively little. A group will spend much time and waste much breath and indignation over a petty grievance, and show very little interest if the root causes of unemployment are mentioned. In discussing proposed remedies, the opinions offered usually show little thought and are not often of any value. Co-operative schemes of various kinds have been started among themselves, hut usually collapse after a short time through lack of the co-operativ? spirit. One ambitious movement to set the unemploj'ed at work for one another by means of a labour note currency made a hopeful start, was torn by internal quarrels, and came to an untimely end. The Land Settlement Solution '?Put the unemployed on the land" Ss the favourite remedy and the most attractive one. Most townsmen idealise country life —having no real conception of it—and to have a little place of one's own where a man could earn a secure living, dwell beneath his own vine and tree, none daring to make him afraid —boss or rent collector is an alluring prospect. But the tales of returned. men who have sunk their little all and years of hard work in State sections, only to be driven off penniless into the ranks of the unemVloved, give the other side of the picture. "To hear some people talk, said one, "they imagine you could dibble the unemployed on the land as if they were so many cabbages that could be left to thrive there. Most small farmers —hard-working men who know tncyir job—are in a hopeless position to-daj/, hanging on by their eyebrows on the chance of things mending. Land settlement is no good for town workers they'd never make a do of it." ""Surplus population is 3, regular country crop even here," said another, "and at the present rate of progress with these small farm schemes it will take years before they alone are provided for. It may check the drift to the to.wns, bring back a few to the country, but it is no remedy for town unemployment." "Up in Hokianga E see they are starting men with 20 cows on 50-acre sections," said an excountry man. "I know from experience that a cow must return £lO a season to clear bare expenses. Herd-testing records average 2601b. butter-fat. At 7£d—more than the present season average —that's a little over £B. With other things, say a man makes £2OO a year, he won't be able to meet his liabilities. 'Arid the dairy outlook isn't hopeful."/ The Simple Life "Group and village settlements could "be made a success if people were content to lead the simple life, and were fitted for it," said an old ' "With a few acres, a couple of cows, 8, few sheep and pigs, fowls, bees, and an orchard, a family could provide for all their real needs. They could card and spin' their own wool, weave cloth and blankets on hand-looms. There is a market for hand-woven stuff like Harris tweeds. With electric power on tap practically everywhere, profitable village industries could be started. Ford advocates this combining of town and country life, like watchmaking in Switzerland. It looks like going back to the. old self-sustained village cummunities, but' it could be made a real step forward in social progress." "You'll never get our people to become peasants, and a good job, too," was one comment on this. "You hear a lot about the prosperous French peasants, but they didn't strike our fellows as/a very attractive lot. Mean, greedy, and grasping, they'd skin a flea for its tallow. They work their children like.slaves, and don't get half a.i much out of life as our poorest Maoris." "Village settlements within daily railage distance of the bigger centres having been successful in the past in taking up the slack in town work, and now that land can be had at a reasonable price that is the best form of land settlement for us," was another comment. "When the Coates' Government went to the country that was on their programme and it is a policy all parties would favour."