THE SOCIAL EQUATION

NZ Truth, Issue 997, 3 January 1925, Page 5

THE SOCIAL EQUATION

■» A.. G. Gardiner's View Rich . and Poor: Production: Doles. Mr. A. S. Gardiner writes m an English paper, m reply to correspondents: We , are . all members of a single economic organism, and have a com J mon- interest m the- health of that organism. It exists by mutual service! Whether we make cotton goods or steam engines, plough the fields or dig for coal, write articles m the newspapers or drive railway trains, serve m shops or- nurse m hospitals, act on the stage or sweep the streets, we are all engaged m supplying one another's requirements, and adding to the common stock from, which we -draw the conveniences and necessaries of life. We are, not all engaged m equally useful labor, we do not get the same rewards, and we certainly do not get paid according to the value of our work to society. I dare say Mr. ' Steve Donoghue makes more by galloping for three- minutes at Epsom than a bricklayer will make m ten years, yet no one sensible, person would suggest that he does more useful work than the bricklayer." And I have no doubt that : Jimmy Wilde or Harry Lauder have made more .money than Oliver Lodge, whose discoveries payed the way to the invention of wireless. But though these inequalities of condition and reward exist and, so far as I can see, always will exist, the broad fact remains that we live by doing one another's work. The more thoroughly and honestly we do it, the healthier- will be the common, organism to which we belong. As m. the case of, the beehive, the more free we are from parasites,' whether at the top or .the bottom, that live on the working . community, the stronger . will be our corporate, condition. If we are bled at the one .end by idle rich and at the other by idle poor, we shall soon come to the end of our tether. - I do riot suggest that if I have been fortunate enough to be well employed

and well paid I should, do nothing for my -correspondent, who is othewise: I do not like the tax-gatherer, but I recognise/in him a necessary agent for keeping the social machine m repair and correcting the more glaring inequalities of life. . But as a good citizen, ' I • want • the money he takes from' me 1 to be applied to. wise and. re-productive-ends... I; want it 1 spent m giving the; public efficient services, m making, us a healthy .nation, . m providing the children of. the poor with education which will; make them profitable citizens instead of a' national burden, m securing as far as possible equality of opportunity for all, m helping to insure' the workers against the risks of . bad trade and unemployment, m raising/the standard of "life and abolishing the scandal of "No room to livel" • Money spent m" such services as these is 'not poor relief :'• it is social justice. It is spent to make the vessel m which we are all voyaging together ;se'aworthy and safe/ for everybody. But since the war ended, we have spent r £272,000,000 on .doles to the unemployed. I do : hot say that we' ought not to haye spent it. We were - plunged into an abnormal condition of things, which made some measure of this sort unavoidable. . But it could only be justified as, a desperate cure for /a desperate disease. If we had had the 1 foresight' to prepare, for the depression that followed the war, we 1 should not, haye spent less money, but /we ' should have • spent> it m different ways. /■./ '-..". ■' ■'■.:.'•■• '"' With that £2.72,900,000 we could, haye ■provided ' "reproductive 'w'drk". which would have absorbed all the unemployed, and would have left the common estate of "the nation enormously richer. Instead,, it has been spent as unprofit-

ably as if it had been poured down the sewers, and the., burden of it hangs round the neck, of the taxpayer and hinders the recovery of that general prosperity on which everbody depends. This country, cannot prosper on a policy of doles. It .- can survive them as .'.a . temporary expedient to tide things over a crisis, but as a permanent system it would perish under, them. We live 4 ., by the exchange of our services, and if one section of the community is engaged m carrying on its back another section of the community, its own productive capacity will be diminished and the whole system will break down. A correspondent writes me concerning rich men. He thinks that he is entitled (through doles) to bleed such creatures. ; I have no affection for rich men, though I believe that the man who makes riches for himself by his business acumen gen- [ erally makes work and riches for the community m doing so. , I believe m levying a heavy toll son the rich, and no one can say we do not do so. We take te,n shillings of every pound the rich man makes to-day, and if the screw can be still further tightened ! without destroying his incentive to enterprise, I shall make no objection. But' the money we take from him | should be used, not to pauperise the poor, but to increase the efficiency of the State.: It should be employed to increase . our productive capacity ,^ and not to cjnvert our producers into parasites. .'.".■ . ■ .. The most sinister evil at the present time is the heresy of restricting production. 'It is that heresy which blocks every housing scheme, makes everything dear and. threatens our trade -supremacy m our own market as well as m the world market. We .are suffering from under-consumption due to the high cost of production. Profiteering on the one side and "ca' canny" on the other are creating artificial scarcity and artificial prices which cut down consumption, reduce trade and cause unemployment. In this vicious circle doles play a ruinous part. They, help nobody, and. ruin everybody. They were an un-

fortunate necessity in' an emergency, but m the intersts. of labor as much as of capital we ought to clear their poison out of our system. We can't live by plundering one another. We can only live by producing for one another, -and the more abundantly and cheaply we produce,, the more prosperous we shall all be.