MR HENDERSON ATTACKS UNEMPLOYMENT PARADOX.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20540, 15 February 1935, Page 6

MR HENDERSON ATTACKS UNEMPLOYMENT PARADOX.

Statesman Looks for Moral Awakening to Solve Difficult Problems Ahead.

During 1935 we should make a determined and definite endeavour to inaugurate the Age of Leisure and of Plenty and to tackle first of all the question of unemployment from this point of view, says Mr Arthur Henderson in a published statement m England, in which he sets out what he would like to see accomplished in 1935. It is not so much a problem of relief in my view, as a problem of social organisation, a problem of utilising the economic resources which are actually available. It is a tragic paradox that the unemployed workers and their families should be compelled to live on a meagre standard of

subsistence, enforced by tests of means, at a time when statesmen and the captains of industry are talking of redundancy in economic equipment and mechanical resources of production.

J SHOULD like to see, therefore, in 1935, a change in our way of thinking about unemployment and the social distress which it involves. I hope that we shall envisage the problem more as a problem of organising the distribution of plenty than as a problem of distributing public relief to the unemplo3 r ed. There is much to disturb and alarm us in the development of the international situation; the seeming frustration of the effort towards disarmament and the creation of a collective peace system: the stealthy return to the old halance-of-power policy based on new groupings and alliances with its concurrent renewal of expenditure upon rearmament; the excesses of economic nationalism, partly the consequence of this renascence of militarism, but largely the outcome of an intensifying struggle for markets and the protection of industry and unemployment; and the impairment of social standards under the stress of declining trade and the deadweight burden of unemployment. But the question strikes more deeply. More to be desired than an abrupt change in the sphere of political action is, I venture to suggest, a change of intellectual attitude and habits of thought. Such voice and leadership as men like Charles Kingsley. Frederick Denison Maurice, F. W. Robertson, Hugh Price Hughes, John Clifford Silvester Horne, and many others, gave in their time to the moral forces of society is needed more than ever to-day. ' Appeal to the Youth. I would like to see the Churches in 1935 organise a strong and direct appeal to the youth of our country. It has been said with truth that the natural leaders of the post-war generation were killed during the war. It is a responsibility that rests upon our Churches to re-establish in the hearts of youth the idealism and the discipline that are required for citizenship in these disturbed and perilous years. From the moral awakening of the people will come the power which will bring to fruition such a cause as the organisation of the world for peace and the creation of a system of collective security. It is the dearest wish of my heart that during 1935 the work of the Disarmament Conference will bear fruit in an international agreement which will, at any rate, begin the process of disarmament. My experience as President of the Disarmament Conference has taught me that this question of disarmament and the development of a system of collective security through the League of Nations is a long and toilsome task which requires a permanent organisation in the form of a commission, and I should like to see in 1935 a decision taken on these lines. Laying Foundations of Peace, One Disarmament Conference, even though its sittings are protracted from

year to year, cannot solve the problem in all its ramifications, though it can, and I believe it will, lay the foundations in an International Agreement. The world waits for achievement in this matter by the Conference at Geneva, and I believe that success will do more than anything else to re-establish the authority and power of the League of Nations in international politics. If 2935 brought us no more than the accomplishment of the aims of the Disarmament Conference and the reinforcement of the League of Nations organisation the world would have cause to be glad. Poverty With Plenty. Turning from international politics to matters of social and economic policy, I would like to see in 1935 a new attack made upon the problem of poverty-in the midst of plenty, and a solution found of .the tragedy of unemployment. It seems to me that the time has come for a serious reexamination of the economic policy which Governments have pursued in the post-war disorder and confusion. There is, I am sure, grave questioning going on in the minds of many people with regard to the policy of restriction imposed upon the productive forces of the society. It is, I am aware, a grievously complicated and difficult problem to solve. But I would like to see a beginning made not by the continuance of the policy of restriction, but by way of the Government taking over the surplus productive capacity of our economic system and using these resources primarily to supply the needs of the unemployed workers and their families. Those of us who move amongst the people know that there is a real revulsion of feeling amongst them when they hear of State subsidies being given not to increase production. but to curtail it, and when they read, as they do from time to time, of actually available wealth being deliberately destroyed in order to maintain market prices; or when they become aware that industries are receiving public money to enable them to “scrap” a portion of their productive resources which are held to be redundant —as, for instance, the proposal to discard millions of spindles in the Lancashire cotton industry.

Difficult as the problem is, I am oldfashioned enough to believe that restriction and curtailment are not the methods that a rational and enlightened society should employ in its endeavour to create an equilibrium between production and consumption. This is fundamentally the most inportant problem of domestic policy that we have to face. It is directly related to the problem of unemployment. It is much to be desired that unemployment and the needs of the unemployed workers and their dependents should be considered from the point of view of the abundant resources which mechanical invention, scientific organisation and power equipment on the modern scale have brought within sight of all.