HISTORY’S WARNING

Stratford Evening Post, Volume II, Issue 239, 10 May 1933, Page 5

HISTORY’S WARNING

Lessons New Zealand Did No? Heed *

UNEMPLOYED PROBLEM ]j

Wellington, Today. 0 “Looking at our own country, I j confess I do not see any clear , sign of better days,” said the Rt. | Rev. T. H. Sprott, Bishop of Wei- j lington, in his presidential ad- ) dress at the opening of the an- i nual Synod of the Wellington ] diocese of the Church of England \ yesterday.

“Our greatest and most urgent' problem, unemployment, seems to be as far from solution as ever,” said his Lordship. “The legislation is now in force, and all people of good-will must earnestly hope that It will bring’ to the country the benefit it was designed to bring. No doubt it has brought, or will bring, relief to many;! but I think that, looking at the! country as a whole, the relief given, is in part delusive. I mean that in part it has meant little more than the transference of the burden from one set of shoulders to another set of shoulders, little, if at all, more able to bear it. The notion which is floating about that all the people who invest money are people of large means, who, after all curtailments a inf deductions, have still an ample or at least a sufficient margin left, is of course, ridiculous. The fact is that large numbers cf investors are people of small means, who, through long years of work and careful living, have managed to save a few hundreds or* have acquired a little house properry as a provision for old age. in the' best of times these people have hut a narrow margin; in such times as these it altogether disappears. ",

I mention this because I think the special hardship of such people has not been sufficiently recoguised. They for the most part do not loudfv complaim and so do not receive much sympathy. “Sometimes—l do not say -always—this severe limitation of choice is due to some previous misdoing or folly. ! believe it is so, at least to a considerable extent, in our present evil plight. I do not forget that we are involved in a world calamity which ‘ ‘s beyond our control. Still I believe that, to a greater degree than we like to admit, cur plight is due to our own fault. Just think! Here we are. a community numbering 1,500,000 all told. We own a country won for us by the patient endurance of privaV°ns, the brave defiance of dangers, by tf> s eariy pioneers, since forgotten.

It is a country of great natural rei sources capable of maintaining a much larger population. It is als» a, country with a climate which, notwithstanding its vagaries, conduces to a somewhat pleasure loving lift. We discovered that money could be borrowed m abundance. We borrowed freely. I do not say rl-at this money, so easily acquired, was wholly misspent, but I believe much of ir, was. In ah the luxuries and amenities of hto we would raise . ur sparsely room fated and undeveloped coumrv t 0 level which it took older coururies centuries to reach. “1 believe not a little of the borrowed wealth was utterly wasted This might have been all very well ii! national prosperity were a roncuu* quantity, subject to no fluctuations. \ve were,” concluded Rishno Sprott, “unheedful of one of the moss certain lessons of history—perhaps wd imagined that the past had nothing to teach a young democracy in a new country—the lesson that, as the natural year has its seasonal changes, sO likewise the greater year of national history; that sooner or later th-re come—there must come—time? when rains descend, and floods come, tnts winds blow and beat upon the houso of a nation’s life; and then, if t,hat* house bo ill-foinidod or carelessly! built, it must fall, and the crash ig great. As yet that last stage of calami ity has not befallen us; but I suspect? that, if we knew all, wo should discover that we had been nearer to i# —perhaps are still nearer to it—thud we thought or think. 'Well were it if we should lay to heart the lesson before it is too late. W r e need—-imperat lively need —to consider our ways.’’