RATIONING OF WORK

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21879, 15 August 1934, Page 15

RATIONING OF WORK

Sir, —Under present conditions persons the least able to make good use of leisure have more than their share of it at the community's expense, while those who could turn a little more leisure to social advantage are not infrequently obliged to devote unnecessarily long hours to an uncongenial occupation. Leisure is of value to the worker as a means to increased efficiency, so a more equitable distribution of work and leisure would result in a better combination of the two, with social and moral benefit to the community, and more opportunity for the individual's choice of occupation. With a better distribution of labour and the fruits thereof, and an inter-action between consumption and production, unhampered by monetary difficulties, the unemployment problem could be reduced to a few comparatively straightforward issues. The rationing of work by a statutory reduction of working hours is a step sufficiently evident to have received some consideration, and though no radical departure from present standards could be effected at once, a progressive application of a principle is surely not impossible. Certain industries are being partly subsidised, with a view to absorbing labour, and if a reduction in working hours were made, a condition of subsidy, the money now spent on relief work and unemployed sustenance could be gradually diverted in tliis direction. Wherever applicable a reduction in working hours equal, say. to double the wages and unemployment tax, could be made, with a nro rata reduction oT wages and exemption from the tax. Where there's a will there's a way. The brotherhood of man is a principle which is universally accepted, hut in delegating our social problems to others, we are apt to become unmindful of our individual responsibilities. W.F.H.