LABOUR-SAVING MACHINERY AND UNEMPLOYMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21362, 16 June 1931, Page 11

LABOUR-SAVING MACHINERY AND UNEMPLOYMENT

TO THI EDITOR. Sir, —Evidently we have come to the parting of the ways. Our unemployment scheme has broken down; it was top heavy, and, like all makeshift schemes to solve drastic conditions, it has proved useless. We are also told we cannot have a democracy unless we have ah educated people'. We have been educating on vast lines in this country for the last 20 years, but evidently this education has made little difference in our governing bodies. Why? There is always a war going on between Capital and Labour. There always has been and always will be until we recognise that the one is useless without the other-r-that the man who sells his labour is just as important to the success of a system as the man who has capital to invest. This is where our education has been at fault. In the installation of labour-saving machines the capitalist has no consideration for the men and women who are thrown out of employment. His thought is on the machines which will produce quantities of goods at a small expense, and the farreaching effect of this selfish policy is seen in 40,000 idle, penniless, and hungry men in this country to-day. Dr Keynes says that machinery will reduce the working hours of man to three and four per day. Dr L. P. Jacks says, "What on earth are people going to do with that amount of leisure? If people spend it as they are doing to-day the world will go to the _ dogs.' But why worry about what might happen? The great need is to give a living to these 40,000 people first, and then during the leisure time they have with reduced working hours the educationalists can get busy in showing them how to use their time wisely. Let us brush all this talk of vocational guidance aside for the moment and listen to the cries of hungry people—they are loud and strong enough for all to hear, and, unless we take heed, our so-called civilisatjon is in danger of collapse, and our educated and uneducated will go down together in a struggle for existence.—l am, etc., June 14. Mother of Six.