The Star. SATURDAY, AUGUST 19. THE COST OF IDLENESS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10236, 19 August 1911, Page 6

The Star. SATURDAY, AUGUST 19. THE COST OF IDLENESS.

r- We were rather startled earlier in the week to learn that a candidate for [Parliament, on being asked if he was in 'favour of a Right to Work Bill, had replied that he had never heard of suoh a measure. BTit wo dare say Mr Hall's ignorance is not singular on this particular subject. Few people take the .trouble to think out oven the most 'pressing problems of the day for themselves, and the works of the younger 6Chool of economists are not widely read. A Right to Work Bill is a re'cognition of the principle that an unemployed, man is a wasted man, that the community owes it to every man that he should be able to earn aliving for himself and for those dependent ■upon Mm. and that if he is not working he. has still to be supported at the expense of other people. A very comImon view, is that taken by Mr W. M. [Hughes, the Attorney-General in the (Federal Ministry, who, in an article (■written last year, declared that the unemployed" man Tvas deliberately created thy private enterprise and that private 'enterprise ought therefore to be compelled to provide for his support. We •dare say there is a good deal of truth .in the view thus crudely expressed, but what we have to deal with is not the tmanner in which the unemployed man lis brought into being so much as the iibare facte that he is the product of the present industrial system and that '■ibis existence is bad for the State. ) : The attitude of the industrial world generally towards the unemployed is a curious one. We are told that there

must always be a reserve of labour in la country to meet the demands of flourishing trade. Labour., in the or- , ithodox economic text-books, is described as existing in classes, varying 'from the highly-skilled and efficient to 'the unskilled and inefficient. The "lighest class is always sure of employment; the lowest is drawn on. only in |times of exceedingly prosperous trade. It is argued that these gradations must . 'necessarily exist, for trade varies in intensity and industry must have some reserve of labour on which to draw *hen it is particularly brisk, while in the nature of things it must dispense some labour, when it is slack. ,This argument implies that what is trailed the reserve of labour exists for the good of the whole community, and jfchat industry—by which is meant in this case the employers of labour—canHot be expected to make provision for the maintenance of the least efficient .workmen when they are not in work. t The point that we are going to make, j-however, is that industry does, directly or indirectly, have to make such provision, and further, that it is cheaper ior,the community to provide all men (■with constant work than to allow some Sien to be out of work. There is a sane statement of the position in Mr J. A. \Hobson's "The Social Problem." ' For long periods of time large stagnant pools of adult effective labourfxwer lie rotting in the bodies of their owners, unable to become productive 'of any form c{ wealth, because they fcannot *et access to the materials of prod**ction. Facing them in equal idleness are unemployed or under-employed masses of land and capital, mills, _Biines, etc., which, taken in conjuncjtion "with this labour-power, are theoretically competent to produce wealth ifor the satisfaction of human wants. vAt certain brief periods of industrial these "pools" are nearly %r$ in the_ higher fields of skilled lapour; but in the lower grounds of industry they form a perpetual swamp. , v - The description, of course, applies (frpith special force to older and more populous countries than New Zealand, put the evil exists even here. The individual atoms of the " swamp " may be weaklings, elderly people, inefficients, unemployable, but there are alfways individuals who could be useful producers of wealth but for some mischance. These people must be maintained, and the dependents must be "piaint&ined. We call some of them paupers, and by so doing we degrade them until they are content to be known is chronic idlers, dependent on charity. ( ffhe implication of this term of reproach is that every man and every jwoman is tinder an obligation to labour for the means of sustenance, but while *Fe declare that this obligation does exist we do not see to it that the opportunity for the discharge of the obligation is provided. j Moreover, the upkeep of people who are out of work is a dead loss to the ■community. The butcher and the grocer and the baker may have to bear *he loss, the people may bear it through ieubscriptions to coal and blanket funds 'and the like charities, or the burden •may be thrown on the rates. It is a self-evident proposition that work ought jto be provided, and that if work were • provided for all people not directly pro[vided with employment by the regular industries of the country, the saving .Would be a double one. The "tinemployed" would be producing wealth at ileast equal to the cost of their maintenance, and the charitable people or jrthe ratepayers would bo saving money. Sit should not be necessary to argue ■this point, because, the economic soundness and the financial advantage of providing work for the workless ought to fbe self-evident. But the fact is there fcnd must be faced, that even here in Zealand, though we may admit the truth of the argument, we do not carry it in practical operation. ' It remains to be considered whether the individual has any moral " right to work," whether it is obligatory on the State to provide opportunities for .remunerative work for all men. The most striking as well as the most elementary statement of the case, so far as we know, is that credited to Dr Stein. The modern State, he says, in prohibiting abortion and the starvation of children, has placed on the in"dividual a legal compulsion to be born. Therefore there is a moral duty incumbent on the State to make "the fight to live," a corollary of this "legal to be bom." Tin's "right to live" implies " a State guarantee of a minimum standard of life," and since vork is a physical and a moral necessity for a healthy life, this admission of a public guarantee of life involves •the provision of public work for those !*ho require it. Charitable Aid or fSPoor Law relief does not meet the Cflse, because it purposely imposes a Irtamp of personal degradation on those jirho receive it, and, as-we have seen, it f ls economically highly unsound. This does not pretend to be a full statement of the case. We have space for only the barest outline of'the argument, and ,we caggpt attempt tcf dayalf>p. it at

length now. What we set out to do was to explain for the benefit of those people who, like Mr Hall, have never heard of a Right to Work Bill, the problem that such a Bill has to deal with and the principles on which it is based, aaid what we hare said may serve to introduce them to the study of one of tlie most important social problems of the day.