AMERICAN YOUTH

Taranaki Daily News, 17 August 1934, Page 12

AMERICAN YOUTH

ATTITUDE TO “NEW DEAL.” VISITING DEBATER'S ADDRESS. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” and how American youth views it was the subject of an address to toe Wellington Rotary Club on Tuesday by Mr. Robert K. Burns, vis* iting Washington University debater. Introduced by Sir Alexander Roberts; who mentioned Mr, Bums’ many victories on the debating forum, toe visitor said he wished to speak frankly and fearlessly on the economic situation existing in his own country, and toe’ aspirations of youth in relation to those conditions. . . x j The change in conditions was indicated recently, the speaker said,. by a man who had returned to New York after ten years’ absence/' He said that if he. had gone up Broadway ten years ago with a bottle of whisky in one hand and a tendollar gold piece in the other he would have been arrested for having the whisky. To-day he would be arrested for having the gold. One of toe great changes was illustrated by the one and a-half million youths leaving the colleges and schools annually; not graduating into jobs, but stepping into the bread line and toe relief roll. • . . Hoover had said the depression was going to last, three months, then he extended it to six, and it had gone on and on ever since. Such was toe chain of crises that it seemed as though youth must accommodate themselves to the dislocation as best they could. They were beginning to question the immutable law that these things come and go.

ABOLITION OF CHILD LABOUR.

Hope of recovery seemed so remote, and the fact that great populous countries such as India and China had very properly decided to manufacture for themselves was adding to the trouble back home. The one ray of hope was Mr. Roosevelt’s organisation of the New Deal, Under Government direction this had already been the means of abolishing child labour and the sweat shop. The Government had been bold enough to supply electricity from its own plans, and had given it out that no man in America need starve. Under the N.R.A. toe Government had raised the purchasing power of the people by instituting a system of codes, under which industrialists cut down the hours of employment and raised wages. After a year of the N.R.A. they were able to see the result. They had raised low wages and cut the higher, but it had meant very little increase in the purchasing power. To increase any further the wages of the lower paid disturbed the pool of profit at the bottom. Hours of employment had been cut from 48 to 40 per week, in order to make room for more workers, but i'. was discovered that the same quantity of goods could be produced in 40 as in 48 hours. Then it was thought that the hours should be reduced .to 30 a week, but as this disturbed the profit pool it could not be' persisted with.

COSTING £3,000,000 A DAY.

Then the Government initiated a programme of public and civic works which kept four million men at work for six months; but it could not go on as it was costing the Government £3,000,000 a day, and no Government in the world could stand such loss. So that to-day there were still 10,000,000 unemployed, and to that number was being added one and a-half millions from the schools each year—an army of youths for whom there were jobs for three out of every ten—for the rest it was discontent, disillusionment, and the bread line. One would have imagined that this crisis would have, brought a demand for man power, but Mr. Burns said that the invention and manufacture of labour-saving machinery advanced more rapidly in times of depression than in prosperity, which was inclined to engender an inclination to sabotage the industrial organisation. The only one thing left to youth was the future, Mr. Burns said, and it must get down and grapple with the roots of the problem to find out what was wrong.