"A GRANDER DESTINY"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22000, 5 January 1935, Page 13

"A GRANDER DESTINY"

Sir, —How far is Mr. J. Johnstone going to get with arguments like he uses and what does lie mean when he says we cannot increase our consumption without increasing our output? How about the warehouses and storehouses filled with goods beyond the reach of many who through no fault of their own are not able to purchase them ? W T e know that throughout the world there is a surplus of foodstuffs and manufactured goods, and if a proportion of our population in common with the rest of the people are undernourished or ill-clad is tliere not something wrong? Are not our methods of distribution wrong when we hear of rotting fruit and produce, fish dumped back into the sea, the scandal of the burnt coffee crops because too much was being produced? Broadly speaking there is stupidity somewhere, and is not Mr. M. J. Savage, Leader of the Opposition, on the right track when lie speaks of a grander destiny for mankind in a land of full and plenty? When J. Johnstone says Mr. Savage is writing of material things, does he not realise that most of our troubles to-day are man made, because a wise Providence has never been so bountiful before, and it is only those who shut their eyes to the true position who can fail to realise that we live in a world bountifully blessed by God and mismanaged by man. The work some of us have to do from one year's end to the other strikes to the very heart. Great Britain in many ways is giving us a big lead in betterment methods on the soundest possible lines. Old methods long ago outworn are no use in a new and changing | world. W. K. Howitt. i

Sir, —Mr. J. Johnstone, in reference to the inspiring New Year message of the Leader of His Majesty's Opposition, asks how a grander destiny is to be achieved. He answers the question himself "by keeping down costs." Like many other orthodox economists, Mr. Johnstone assumes that the general welfare depends on individual profit, which can lie attained only by keeping down individual costs. ]t must be clear, however, that you cannot keep down costs without distributing less income and dispensing with wageearners. "Costs" are at once the financial means of production and of distribution, but our financial system makes the absurd demand that the producer shall obtain as costs and profits more than he disburses as costs. If we follow the keeping-down-costs doctrine to its logical conclusion, we should expect to produce for nothing and sell at fabulously high prices. The grander, destiny so eloquently prophesied by Mr. Savage cannot be attained through existing financial methods which refuse to recognise the necessity of an equation between production and consumption. Mr. Savage's message for tho New Year reminds us of the words of His Hoyal Highness the Prince of Wales cabled to New Zealand in July, 1932, "If all employable labour were employed for a reasonable number of hours per week, the world would have at its disposal a volume of commodities and services which would enable the entire population to live 011 a higher level of comfort and well-being than ever before was contemplated in the rosiest dreams of the social reformer. The urgent task is to bring consumption and production into proper relationship. It is not a simple task, but quite a possible one." W. J. Gatenby. High Street, January 3, 1935.