FUTURE PROBLEMS

Otago Witness, Issue 3487, 11 January 1921, Page 7

FUTURE PROBLEMS

“MUST BE A WAY OUT.” OPINION OF SIR ANDREW RUSSELL. j In the Broadview, a new paper published : at Hastings, General Sir Andrew Russell con- | tributes tlie following interesting and instructive article: “It was often said during the war that peace would bring problems of unexampled | magnitude which would test the wisdom and fortitude of statesmen. The prediction has proved truer than many of those who uttered it expected.” Granted that the industrial situation is bad, that relations between different classes of men, between different creeds, races, ana nations are unsatisfactory, there must surely be a way out. Are we missing some main guiding principle whose non-observance halts ! us all along the line of reconstruction? | It is suggested that there is too fainthearted a determination in spite of a pretty j general acceptance of its necessity, in bringing our own particular wishes —personal, class, or national—into harmony with the general good. Of the many outstanding problems, none, to my mind, calls more urgently for a solution than tho so-called industrial problem. COMMUNITY SERVICE. The so-ol ten preached doctrine that La bom j an d Capital have identical interests is not j true in everyday practice, though it should |be true. The fact is that with exceptions j each pursues its own aim exclusively, with the natural result that mutual antagonism | tpo often takes the place of mutual aid. | Substitute, as a common aim, the service of the community, a service to bo received ! unflinchingly by ail; apply in everyday life J and practice the doctrine of “from every j man according to his ability, to every man j according’ to his need, ’ and then you arrive i somewhere. | _ Unless the majority of us can c-et it | into. our heads that real self-expression—- ! an instinct —can only be found in developi a!l d offering to the service of our i fellows those gifts with which God has en- | dowed us, the making of laws will not carry jus far. But in the relations of Capital j fo Labour and the converse, this principle is | too often obscured by immediate personal aims. Competition elbows co-operation out |°f if s way. Possession of capital means command over material, and what is more important, over men, and, to a certain extent, over their lives and material fortunes. Capital can only survive by ministering, and that successfully, to the’wants of the , community. Let us produce extravagantly what men do want, or economically I what men do not want, and it signs its i own death warrant, and' small satisfaction, indeed, is that to the community that has helped to create the wealth so squandered. We do not want, and cannot afford, inefficient capitalists. WANTED: CAPABLE INDUSTRIAL CAPTAINS. The need for capable industrial captains | in peace is as imperious as tho need for j capable commanders in war. I Speaking as one of the rank and file, ; in times of industrial crisis such as the ! present, one feels that no rewarej could jbe too great for capable leaders as no j reward is too great for those leaders who | save their country in time of war. J If memory serves, it was Karl Marx who wrote of the Abstinence of the Capitalist. Is it not just this abstinence that is wanted? —Abstinence from consuming ! an unfair proportion of the results of his ‘ own, and his fellow-workers’ labour, j Though the actual proportion of the : nation’s wealth so subtracted is small, exj pressed as it often is in evident luxury. ; it creates and fosters a spirit of envy and j encourages a belief in the unfairness of distribution of awards. A commander, who, being given the ; power over a battalion of 1000 men, made use of them t.o serve his own comfort at the expense of the work in hand, would be justly condemned by all. Wo do want industrial captains who will see to it that the nation’s wealth is not wasted in wildcat schemes, just as we wanted leaders in the war who saw to it that men’s lives were not wasted in impossible and useless enterprises. AND WIIAT OF LABOUR? lias; Labour nothing but an interminable list of duties stretching in front of it in which to find self-expression? Just as much, no more and no less than the captains of industry, self-expression can oifiv be found by each individual when he gives (he best he is capable of to serve .the common good. Production is what is wanted. Unless there is ample sufficiency to go round, somebody is hound to go .short; the rich may not, the poor certainly will. Let us produce ail we can. If i„ is a matter of growing chaff, let us grow it in plenty and good. Let us dairy to the best advantage ; teach our fowls to lay two eggs a day; if we are miners, see to it that if any housewife is short of coal it is not our fault; if a wharf labourer, that we boat (he record—in other words, give of our best. Production is the first need. Then let ns consider if our organisation and distribution are what they should be. In (he writer’s opinion wc carry too many “ duds.” Our overhead expenses, including nil those men and all that material now employed in distribution, aro too great. There are too many in the middleman’s line, too few in the field and factor'.-.