The Waikato Independent WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, 1945 "FULL EMPLOYMENT-OR ELSE"

Waikato Independent, Volume XLIV, Issue 1119, 18 April 1945, Page 2

The Waikato Independent WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, 1945 "FULL EMPLOYMENT-OR ELSE"

IN its monthly publication of December last the National City Bank of New York has a most informative article on post-war prospects and policies and it has much to say that is sound on the recurring theme-that is not only persistent in the United States, but in our own and any other country, as to a full measure of employment after the war, and whose responsibility it is to provide such employment. The article states, and rightly too, that at every, moment of their lives business people are at the mercy of their customers. They guarantee jobs irrespective of the costs of what they buy and the prices they must ask for their product, irrespective of consumer preferences; or irrespective of government policies which may affect their costs and profits and stimulate or depress the spirit of expansion or enterprise. They cannot afford to put people to work simply to provide a market for the products of other producers, they can only produce what they can sell, and in the longrun sell at a profit. Otherwise there will soon be no business.

This prominent New York financial firm offers ( sound advice to this Dominion when it gives the opinion that employers of labour cannot possibly bear the whole responsibility of providing full employment. The effort to put responsibility upon them, even if they are willing to accept it, will be unavailing unless equivalent responsibility is put upon labour and the government also—all in a harmonious whole. Relationships change and adjustments are required to maintain the balance. Such adjustments require healthy co-operation and under the administration of this country at present we do not agree that this would be forthcoming. The adjustments mentioned are the responsibility of all groups, not of employers alone.

Many people will accept the truth of the foregoing, but argue that it does not go far enough. They will rephrase the challenge and say that if private enterprise cannot maintain balanced relations and therefore high employment, some other system dedicated to the maintenace of employment under all conditions will have to supplant it. This is equivalent to proposing to change the function of an economic system—under which the welfare of the individual has been bettered throughout history —is not merely to provide jobs, irrespective of the cost and usefulness of the work performed, but to produce an ever more abundant supply of the goods and services which people want, at ever increasing efficiency and declining relative cost. Only a system which accomplishes this will raise living standards and promote the welfare of its members. If some other system is to be set up which makes employment its primary purpose, the usefulness of the work done will be the subordinate consideration and it must be expected that Avork will be wasted, or carried on at a loss to the public purse. It is equivalent, in its economic consequences, to the system that is operative in every country during the war. There is no valid evidence that it could operate under peacetime conditions except with the same waste, gigantic cost and inflationary dangers—to say nothing of the repression of individual liberty, including the liberty of labour.

If the responsibility for employment after the war is placed correctly—that is to say, on everyone; if the importance of the terms of employment, of the necessity for investment and of the psychological factors is recognised; and if the policies of all parties are made accordingly, there will be hope not merely for jobs for all, but of useful and self-sup-porting jobs.

Wo would join with this sound American opinion that warns against lightly casting aside the system of private enterprise. Such a movement does overlook the devotion of the people of this country---equally with America—to the ideal of liberty. It overlooks also the magnificent response of the present productive system, which has been created by individual freedom and enterprise, to the emergency of war—in meeting our own needs surprisingly well; in providing immense primary supplies for our Allies, and in maintaining a high standard of living at home. The "or else —" argument must be judged against these achievements.