BRITAIN’S UNEMPLOYED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19000, 24 October 1923, Page 7

BRITAIN’S UNEMPLOYED

ENORMOUS ECONOMIC LOSS. SIR ANDREW RUSSELL’S VIEWS. (From Our Own Cor-respokdent.) WELLINGTON. October 23. “The question in England to-day,” said Major-General Sir Andrew Russell after stepping ashore from the liner lonic oa which ho returned from England, “is that of unemployment. There is a huge number of men in the Old Country, quite apart from the men who have fought for their country and who are wanting work. You will gather an idea of the position when you know that there were recently 300,000 unemployed men under the age of 30 in the United Kingdom. That is not taking into account the men over this age and the 40,000 disabled men who are unable to find work. The whole employment question constitutes an enormous problem. ' The State is suffering an enormous economia loss as all these men have to be fed. They must be given sustenance, and this is all so much waste because they are producing nothing and are becoming demoralised. The question of unemployment becomes a burning one, not only for the returned soldiers whose sympathies ore naturally with those men who .fought beside them at the front, but for the whole of the community. It is obvious that the capital of the country must become seriously diminished by such a state of affairs, and without a corresponding amount of production by these men whom the country must, keep with work. The whole system of doles and benefits such as obtains in Great Britain at present, is nothing less than a curse to both the giver and the receiver, and has been so for years.

“What can we do to relieve the situation ? This whole matter was considered at the meeting of the Empire Service League which I attended, and it was pointed out that one course of action was open. Take France for example. She is a country which has lost all her old markets on the continent, and is not likely to regain them to the extent that she held them before the war. The costs of production, partly owing to the deflation of the ourrency, are con* siderably higher in England than on;. the continent. The countries have learnt to supply more of their own w r ants; yet England, with her 500 people to the square mile, cannot do without her big overseas trade. The conclusion of the conference was that every effort should be made to increase the Mother Country’s trade with the dominions with which the per capita trade is higher than with any other country.

“But in order to give the dominions tlia ndded purchasing power required for a bigger volume of trade a forward policy of development of their latent resources in land and otherwise is necessary. The development of these resources involves a demand for labour, and that demand must be met from Great Britain in order that the populations of the dominions may be kept pure. Every man who leaves the United Kingdom to take up work in the development .schemes in the dominions means another purchaser of British goods, and one less hunting for a job in the Old Country. “The question before the dominions is. Have we land which is lying idle? Have we resources which it will pay to develop, and if such is the case, what steps ought we to take to make use of these not only in our own interests, but in the interests of the United Kingdom and of the Empire ?”

Sir Andrew Russel! expressed his personal opinion that capital was needed, and that the_ Government should attract men with capital to the country, giving them a chanco to develop such land as was waiting in North Auckland, and to make money cut of it, and stipulating that the country should ho wanted for small farming in, say, T 5 ot 20 years.