UNEMPLOYMENT DOLE.

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18076, 21 July 1930, Page 7

UNEMPLOYMENT DOLE.

A MOST RETROGRADE STEF GOVERNMENT NOT FACING FACTS “The proposal of the Governmenl to revert to a poll tax as a means oJ raising the necessary amount' and provide for the relief of unemploymenl is a most unscientific method of taxation in that it places the burden on every male person equally, whether he is in a position to carry it or not,” said Mr H. Valder to a Times representative, when asked to comment on the projected scheme. ' “It must, of oourse, be recognised that some form of taxation is necessary which will provide the amount required without undue delay, but the method proposed is probably the'most retrograde step ever ta£en In this country in respect to taxation.” “It is a matter of history," continued Mr Valder, “that a poll tax came into vogue about the sixteenth oentury and In one form or another continued in Great Britain down to the last generation or two, when it was finally reduced to the form of a tax on servants wearing livery, which is the only relict of the original poll tax now existing. “It would appear that our legislators are so barren of ideas in regard to taxation that we have to fall back on such ancient methods which may have been appropriate- in their time,' but which in these days of rationalisation are quite out of step with the trend of modem progress. “The Unemployment Bill is, of course, only a paliative, and we still await some statesmanlike measures which will attack the problem from a scientific point of view. Our Governments and owners of oapital do not appear to have the courage to face the position that conditions have changed and that, sooner or later, reoognision will have to be given to the fact that the solution of the problem lies in the plain truth that our capacity for production has increased enormously, whereas our methods of distributing the wealth earned have remained stationary. “This Dominion has the reputation of being to the forefront in the class of legislation it places on its Statute Book,” oonoluded Mr Valder. “It will be interesting to see what legislation experts in other countries have to say about this latest production of the New Zealand legislature.” The dangerous position into which we Eire drifting, Mr Valder said, is illuminated in the following article by Wickham Steed, editor of the Review of Reviews:—

Britain Up Against It. 1 The present industrial system is. steadily creating unemployment. As fast as work can be found for the .. workless in one direction hundreds of thousands of men are being thrown out of work in other directions—not in this country alone. If this were not so there would hardly be at this moment more than 2,000,000 unemployed in Germany, and between 5,000,000 and 6,000,000 in the United States. Even in France, one of the few European countries which is under-populated, the pinch of unem- . ployment is beginning to be felt. When every allowance has been made for the slackening of emigration and for the “cycle of business depression” in which the whole world seems now to be caught the fact remains that labour-saving machinery is tending to dispense with an increasing amount of manual labour. In its earlier stages, at any rate, .'the rationalisation of industry may diminish rather than increase the number of wage-earners who can get regular jobs. In other words, the non-human factor in production is steadily outrunning the human factor; and the question is arising w’hether the masses of civilised / mankind will consent indefinitely to be driven nearer and nearer to the v verge of starvation because machines can make more quickly and cheaply what human hands once used to make. ' f Nationalisation Not a Cure. To this question. there is only one answer—“No!" The masses' of the people in industrial countries will run the risk of breaking up the present , structure of society rather than allow it and its machines to condemn them to penury. There will be no social peace and little prospect of social progress until the fundamental problem of the future ownership and control of wealth-producing machinery notion is that it can only be solved by “the collectivisation of all the means of production and distribution.” Nationalisation and State, ownership are recommended as the supreme remedies, without reflecting that these remedies must entail the effective enslavement of the vast majority of human beings and the regulation of their State-ridden lives by a horde of petty officials. Private initiative and individual responsibility—the two great schools of character and virility —would be destroyed and, with them, most of the things that make life worth living. No true solution is to be found in that direction.

Co-operation Needed.

' To me it seems that the solution lies in and through responsible cooperation. There are a dozen ways of promoting it, but the main principle is the same in all. Workers must be given, or be enabled to acquire, a direct interest in their work and in the fruits of their labour. It is they—their minds and souls quite as much as their bodies —not the machines they tend or the money that buys maohines, that are the most valuable elements in production. If machinery is indispensable as the means of a higher material civilisation —and I believe it is—the important thing is that the means should not be mistaken for the end. Machinery and capital have to be looked upon as commodities, the raw material of civilised society, not as the flower and purpose of civilised society itself. The 'purpose of civilisation is to produce '"better and nobler men and women. I doubt whether unemployment will ever be overcome unless this is steadily borne in mind. If the owners t and managers of industrial enterprises oan be brought, to understand that they and the' workers they employ are members of one and the same social team, each being to some extent a partner in the concern and all having, directly or indirectly, a voice in its working, the unemployment problem will be easier to tackle. There might be fewer fat dividends for speculative shareholders. They would have to be content with the market rate of interest, plus an allowance for risk or loss, and provision for sinking fund and reimbursement. There might be no more “bonus shares” or “watered capital,” both of which are economically, immoral. But under the system of progressive industrial cooperation there might be a sufficiency (Continued in next columm)

of work and well-being, with shorter hours of labour than are now needed. Ultimately, when men had master eel their machines, the chief difficulty might not he how to find work for the workless, but how to teach workers rightly to use their leisure when their work was dona.