CURE OF UNEMPLOYMENT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22231, 4 October 1935, Page 15

CURE OF UNEMPLOYMENT

Sir _The new programme of works announced. by the Minister of Employment shows that the Government still misunderstands, the nature of the uis- - ease, and treats unemployment as a condition to be relieved and perpetuated by a never-ending succession of small public works. These treat the effects, and not the cause, of unemployment, which is a social disease. £ Unemployment is the climax of gener- . ations: of individualism, capitalism and industrialism, which have concentrated the population into the towns, and alienated the people from possession of the soil, from which all wealth is'de-; rived. According to statistics, we have some 80,000 farmers in New Zealand who have a title to land, that is about 5 per cent of the population. How can we hope to- cure unemployment when - 95 per cent of the people have no title to land, and therefore derive their security of tenure of employment from the small minority Qf 5 per cent, and from the Government, who hold vast areas of land that is idle or not put to productive use, and who pay no rent v for such land, every acre of which is capable of fully "or partially a human being. The New Deal schemes ■ - of the United States have the same job in hand, but their unemployed ; army is about cne huudred times as large as ours, and yet their schemes have been started. The ideal aimed at is the erection of co-operative profitsharing rural settlement, with the great attractions of very cheap living, cheap all-eloctrio homes,-and remunerative occupations for all partly on the land und partly in new village industries worked with the aid of very cheap electric power. One recent visitor, Dr. Kagawa, tojd us that 95 per cent of the villages of. Japan were worked on co-operative, principles, including .cooperation in production and manufactures, co-operation in distribution and consumption, and co-operation in finance find credit. That is the reason wh.v there is now no unemployment problem in Japan, and that is the reason why Japanese goods are so cheap " though the. Japs have a high standard, though a simple one, of livinp statements to the contrary notwitb- r standing. Such co-operative schemes are the best basis of the transition of New Zealand from a primary produce exporting nation, to one where primary and secondary industries balance each others activities. ' Thomas A. F. Stone.