UNEMPLOYMENT.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13937, 24 June 1909, Page 2

UNEMPLOYMENT.

To the Editor of the "Timaru Herald." Sir, —Tile unemployed question ■ is bulking heavily iu newspapers, 'magazines, alid on platforms at the present time, and rightly so, for it is the most important problem of the day. With your permission I'd like to state a fact or two, and ask a question, the correct answer to which, I think, would point out the remedy. .Many remedies have been suggested, but none that I have seen so far. except, perhaps, Mr Arthur Ivitsoirs, the economist writer. Dr Alfred J{us-scll Wall ace has published a pamphlet giving a remedy, but' I have uot yet seen it, but expect it shortly. Now, for my facts.—The peoples of the world may be , divided into two main groups, the savage and the civilised. Of course there are gradations of civilisation. Among the savage peoples there are no. unemployed, and if one starves they all starve, and if one feasts, the successful hunter, say, they all feast. Among the semi-bar-barians there are few, if any, unem-

ployed. It. is not- till »'e reach a. fairly high stage of civilisation that we begin to have an unemployed class. This seems to me a strange anomaly, for the producing power.,, of the people increase in • direct proportion to the increase in intelligence The semibarbarous Peruvians, previous to being conquered by the Spanish JOO years ago, tilled the ground with wooden ploughs drawn by men. 'l'liey liad 110 iron or steel tools; yet they had 110 unemployed except the aged and iufirni. Neither had they any poor, 110 paupers, for "everyone had a competency." (Prescott.) ' We civilised people have the fleam plough., etc., which enables one Britisher to produce more food than pould 100 Peruvians, yet probably half the British people are underfed, and 12,000,000, even in good times, arc hva\>' 011 the verge of starvation, and one-ninth of the workers are at the present time out of work. The pow»r of producing yarn for clothing is more than 6000 to 1 in favour of the Britisher over the Peruvian spinner, and yet more than half the British people ought,-in fairness, to have more clothing, especially in winter, but are unable to .get it. It appears that as 'he producing {tower of the people increases, the difficulty of obtaining the things produced increases too, making it more and more difficult for the vast majority of the people, an ever increasing majority, to live a decent life, and also increases the number of (he lineniployd. To put it shortly, the easier all commodities are produced the harder they are t°' get. . . . My question is, what is the cause ot such a contradictory state of things? I am, etc., E. \\OOD.