A BALANCED EMPIRE

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 301, 19 December 1931, Page 21 (Supplement)

A BALANCED EMPIRE

Would it Solve Big Problem of To-day? CLOSE STUDY ADVOCATED. (Written for the “ Star ” by E. J. HOWARD, M.P.) Where, when and how did the world go wrong? Are we at the end of an epoch? We are turning out degree men from our colleges. We hear of individuals taking honours in economics. We are turning out agricultural college men who understand chemistry and science and history and biology. There never was a time in the history of the world when men knew so much about Nature as now. Send a boy along to Canterbury College and he can be examined for his reactions, and he is told or advised as to whether he would make a successful busman, or a doctor, or a parson, or member of Parliament. They have machines that will record, not his bumps on the outside, but the bumps on the inside of his head. We can send a whisper around the world, fly, whizz through the air at a wonderful speed, yet. with all this knowledge and understanding, we are held up on a simple problem. A Professor’s Views. Professor Soddy, a man who had a brilliant career at school and became a professor of chemistry and a Nobel Laureate in chemistry, says we went wrong because we concentrated on production and forgot the question of consumption. Then he makes this startling statement, “ that consumption absolute is the end, crown and perfection of production; capital which produces nothing but capital is only root producing root; bulb issuing in bulb and never in tulip; seed issuing in seed and never in bread.” Here is a startling statement made by the professor: “ The wealth of a nation is to be estimated only by what it consumes.” Ought we to challenge the professor? Ought we to say he is wrong? Ought we to point out to him that our wealth is what we save? Is the professor wrong? If so, why are we held up just now? During the war we had far more people out of industry than we have to-day, but we fed them, clothed them and gave them money to burn.

What’s wrong with the world? What’s wrong with New Zealand? Does the whole of our future depend on the prices we obtain for our goods on the London market? Are we to go hungry because w*e cannot sell our products. Are we simply a nation of shopkeepers? England used to grow all her own corn and a surplus to export. She now only produces 20 per cent of her requirements. England used to produce all the fruit she required; she now produces only 30 per cent, and imports the Remainder. England used to produce all the butter she required; she produces only 40 per cent now. During the war they became scared in England. The U-boats were cutting off their sup-

plies. They started to cultivate “ Merrie England ”, and the land responded splendidly. Still England couldn’t feed herself. If all her lands, parks, gardens and all reserves were put under intense cultivation she could not feed herself. On the other hand, Central Otago would feed all New Zealand and some to spare. The Waikato would feed New Zealand. We have 50,000 unemployed men with as many women. We have probably an eighth of our population not being supplied w r ith their needs. And yet New Zealand is capable of supplying her own needs. Where have we gone wrong? What is holding us up?. It seems useless asking these questions, and yet the very questions supply their own answers. A Month’s Study. * If all New Zealand would give up a month’s sport and settle down to studying these problems we could solve them.. If we could bring all the energy and thought given to sport to bear on the question we could find the answer. If the “ flu ” or the plague or smallpox struck us we should knock off play and settle down to curing and getting rid of the trouble. The calamity of 20,000 children leaving school without a hope of a job to go to is almost as bad as the plague. Young men and women are growing up and losing the habit of work. Thirty thousand white people in South Africa lost the habit of work. They sank lower and lower until they lost the incentive to even give a thought to to-morrow. I would, if I could, parade those South African poor whites before all young countries such as this. South Africa doesn’t like exposing this problem, so that there is little publicity given to the matter, but it is a cancer. We are in danger. But we are expecting something to turn up. We say it always does. These slumps have been and we have got over them, and so on. But the cause this time is greater. The world never had such a war as the Great War. The Great War was fought with the weapons produced during the war. The food consumed by the fighters was produced during the Great War. But we allowed certain people to put the world under a staggering debt. We allowed certain groups to manipulate the money used in such a way that that money would only buy half the goods it will buy to-day. We allowed groups of people the right to hoard up receipts for these goods supplied and consumed, and now because we cannot pay the interest on those borrowed goods we are not allowed to produce. Must Render Service. We owe a debt to the men who fought, but rightfully only to the men who fought. If the people, the ordinary, kindly-disposed people would forego sport and all amusements for a month and devote their energy to the problem it could be solved. It must be solved or we perish. It must be solved, or we shall slip back to savages. It must be solved or culture and education and the real things that matter will slip from us. Our soils will supply all we need—music, song and story, literature, art and science. It’s

all .in our soil. All men cannot be farmers. Some must be schoolmasters,

painters, doctors and even carters. If all men became farmers we should die for want of houses and shelter and clothing. It is not necessary for all men to be farmers. But all men must render service for service rendered to them. The miller grinds the corn for the flour from the crop raised by the farmer. The miner raises coal for the use of the farmer. The fisherman catches fish to exchange for bread from the baker who bakes, and so on. We must all render service for service rendered to us. We cannot be leaners and lean on others. New Zealand is capable of supplying her own needs. It is calculated that it takes three acres per head to supply our needs. New Zealand will stand up to that test for years to come. France has 187 people to the square mile, and is practically self-supporting. New Zealand is a richer country than France. End of Epoch. We are at the end of an epoch. One hundred and fifty years ago England was poorer than New Zealand is today, if. we count poorness from a standard of living point of view. The poorest to-day is better off than the middle* class of 150 years ago in England. But Hargreaves, Watt, Stephenson and others put new tools into the hands of the workers of England, and England began to live. Life does not mean just eating and 'drinking. Population began to increase at a rapid rate. In 1841 it was about 27,000,000 for Great Britain. About 8,000,000 of these were in Ireland. Then crops failed and Britain began to realise she could not feed herself. She had to import food. But she was exporting machinery. The industrial revolution had turned her into

a workshop. The free import of foodstuffs, followed by droughts and floods, and the farmer of Britain had a bad time. The agricultural population slowly dropped back, but the mines, the mills and the factories went ahead with leaps and bounds.

New Zealand cannot hope to travel the same road as Britain travelled. We are too far away from our neighbours. And those neighbours have all the same advantages and more than we enjoy. England is going back to her lands. She cannot produce more than 25 per cent of her own food requirements, but she is part of an’ Empire, the mother of an Empire. And her children can feed her. New Zealand, as one of those children, must take stock of her own position. Just as England has lost her position of the workshop of the world, so she will have to balance her output in such a way that she will supply her colonies with the things they require in exchange for foodstuffs. But the colonies must say what goods they will take from her —a balanced Empire, each part providing the goods that each part can best produce.

New Zealand must not wait until Mr J. H. Thomas comes and tells us what we must do. We are grown up and can put our own house in order. We want a spring cleaning, a mental spring cleaning. We want a moratorium of sport for a month. If we went in for

a month’s intense study of the problem we could put New Zealand on the map. Shall we do it?