AT THE CROSSROADS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26848, 12 August 1948, Page 8

AT THE CROSSROADS

NEW ZEALAND TO-DAY MALDISTRIBUTION OF LABOUR The articles in this series are sponsored by a committee of New Zealand citizens who are disturbed by present trends in the Dominion, and commissioned this survey as a contribution to public thought. 11l According to a certain school of political thought, New Zealand prior to 1935 was a country which languished under the most abject stagnation and misrule. We have been told that before then the people lived in shacks, under the constant threat of bankruptcy and depression. Mr T. E. Skinner, M.P., contributed during a recent debate the statement that “in 1930-35 the children had nothing to eat ” —a somewhat sweeping observation which he prudently amended by adding that' “they never had enough to eat.”

With all possible detachment, one must join issue with siich statements, which present a completely false picture. To deal with Mr Skinner is absurdly easy. If he took the trouble to look up the reports of the Health Department, indexed under “HI among annual departmental reports, he would find that the percentage of malnutrition among New Zealand children during the Repression was considerably lower than 'it is to-day.

Here are the figures:— Year. Per cent. 1929 7-06 1930 6.30 1931 6-68 1932 5.81 1933 5.48 1934 • • 5.64 1935 5.64

So much for the years which are usually classed as the depression period. Coming to more recent times, we find that in 1944 the percentage of malnutrition among European school children was 9.53, in 1945 9.49, and in 1946 8.07. Admissions of Uneasiness No doubt some charitable allowance should be made for statements made for the purposes of unvarnished party propaganda, but unthinking people tend to be seriously misled. In recent years New Zealand has embarked on social and political experiments of a far-reaching nature. The fact that some people, on the evidence before them, a?e becoming concerned about the effects of such experiments, does not necessarily indicate political bias. The misgivings are shared by people on both sides of the political fence, as witness statements made in recent times by Mr F. P. Walsh. Mr A. H. Nordmeyer and Mr Walter Nash. Mr Walsh, for example, said in his oytspoken “Walsh report" two years ago:

The only solution to our problem is- increased production. I stress again that if we are to have higher standards of living we must have more goods and services. Mr Nordmeyer, at the recent Federation of Labour conference: .

The gap between the value of goods and the money to purchase them is considerable, and that is the reason why the Government is vitally concerned that the principled of stabilisation should remain. Finally we have the admission of Mr Nash in last year’s Budget: We are still faced with serious shortages in housing, equipment, and certain commodities. •

Mr Nash attributed the shortages to the war, but it now becomes increasingly clear that their persistence is due in a large degree to other factors.

The Need for Production

The position as it exists to-day calls for serious reflection on the part of all who have the interests of the country at heart. While it was stated by Mr Nash in 1938 that the financing of social security depended upon increasing production from that date in the same ratio as in the past, the fact is that production has not increased at anywhere near the required rate, and in some important categories has actually declined.

His exact words were: New Zealand’s exports were £9,000,000 in 1896. and in 1936 they were £56,750,000. If. the same rate of increase were maintained in the next 40 years the cost of the scheme could be met. •

To-day the export revenue is extremely buoyant, due to abnormal overseas prices, but the true test is in the volume of production. There the picture is not nearly so rosy. Butter exports are down substantially from the peak year of 1937. In cheese our best year was 1934, Wool and meat exports are both up considerably, ana here we see evidence of the trend towards farming operations in which there are minimum labour requirements. Pig production has fallen disastrously, and so has wheat production. , The Labour Problem Insufficiency and maldistribution of labour is at the root of many of our troubles. The correction of this is one of the most urgent national tasks. Evidence recently given before the Sheep Industry Commission revealed an alarming state of affairs in the high country of Hawke’s Bay, where, in the words of one farmer, rabbits had spread “like a mountain torrent in flood.”

On Patoka sheep station, from 1902 to 1939, the average annual kill of rabbits ranged from 100 to 200. The estimated kill for 1947-48 is 75,000. It is not surprising to learn that, despite the sowing of additional grassland, which should have raised the capacity of the property, the number of sheep carried has declined by 1500, while the number of cattle has fallen from 350 to 80. All this represents a direct national loss. On another station,. Omahaki, the total kill of rabbits this year is expected to reach 10,000. Shortage of labour is one of the great difficulties in dealing with the rabbit menace, and the spread of scrub on marginal lands, which is scarcely less serious, stems from the same cause Turning to other fields of important work, the same inability to recruit an adequate labour force, and to meet the very high costs now entailed, is encountered.

Consider, for example, the difficulties of road construction and maintenance. In Wellington recently it was reported that a cyclist met with an accident when his wheel caught in a deep rut alongside the tramline. The condition of the Wellington roads and tram . tracks, although deplorable, is not unique. Every other town and city is afflicted by the same bugbear of collapsed and potholed street surfaces.

The Wellington "City Council has advertised for labour in every provincial town in the North Island, and recently had a display of 100 billboards on the trams for a week. The results were negligible. Of 200 men recruited from the country over a period of nine months, only 40 now remain. The others have gravitated to easier or higher-paid jobs. Who shall blame them? To reproach the individual worker would be unjust- but the country must sooner or later make a decision on the very important question of where it wants its labour most. Are we to restore our streets and highways, modernise our decaying bridges and replace the burned-out or obsolete commercial buildings which now disfigure so many towns; or is it to suffice, for our material contentment, that mushroom industries and an expanded civil service have claimed useful workers in their tens of thousands?