MACHINERY AGE

Wairarapa Daily Times, 10 May 1932, Page 5

MACHINERY AGE

effect on unemployment. ADDRESS AT, OPTIMIST CLUB. In an address „at the Optimist Club luncheon to-day, -.Mr N. V. Brewerton taking as his subject, ‘ ‘ Machinery and Unemployment,” made some thoughtobservations on this question. At the out-s Qt. of his address, - i Brewerton said that one did not require to- be an economist to realise tlie f allacy of the statement that machinery was responsible for the depression and unemployment. The statement was particularly annoying to an optimist, bta tistics, he said, showed that the general percentage of unemployment had not increased since the beginning of the last century,.with, the introduction of steam power and machinery. I 1 1£l fluctuated and had become irregular There was no question that m short periods serious displacements occimed, but over long periods there was actually no displacement of labour, as statistics showed. Giving his reasons for this, Mr Brewerton pointed out that machinery cheapened production, and, under the law of supply and demand, the demand was so increased that workers temporarily displaced were quickly re-absorbed, and others with ienu The speaker, in elaborating his points on the cheapening of production by the use of machinery, said that the lon i production costs had the effect of increasing the purchasing power of the people. Referring to the introduction of machinery increasing the profits ot employers of labour, Mr Brewerton -said that this increased the spending power and induced further investments. Capital used in production meant an increase in the use of labour. However one looked at the ques ion, he said, all must agree that machinery had been a boon to the workers in common with all people. It had placed commodities within the reach of the workers that otherwise must have bee undreamed of. How many workers, lie asked, would have been able to oun motor ears, wireless sets watches, etc if these had to be made by hand. I touching on some of the reasons irregularity of employment, Mr Bieuerton said that there had been a tendency for labour to bo forced into tlie luxury trades because of the wide ose of machinery in the staple industries. There was a short period of displacement of labour firstly where machinery W as introduced capable of doing the work of, say, 20 workers, and, secondly, the displacement where production temporarily was ahead of the consumptive demand. Under the regime of machinery there was a constant tendency to maximise output, and if deflation or other movements of finance combined to produce a fall in prices, so that the product could not bo disposed of at a profit, congestion occurred and production had to bo slowed down. In this way machinery could not be held directly responsible for the depression, because deflation had to occur first to cause prices to fall. ' Mr Brewerton vouchsafed the opinion that the solution of the-inevitable dislocations of trade seemed to lie in some effective system 'of unemployment insurance. In concluding, his address, Mr Brewerton said it had been stated, that the great development in machinery had brought gain to some and loss to others, but ho thought on the whole that it had brought a large balance of advantage to the community and the world ut large. Mr Brewerton was accorded a hearty vote of thanks for his address.