DOUGLAS CREDIT.

Waikato Times, Volume 114, Issue 19017, 7 August 1933, Page 9

DOUGLAS CREDIT.

OLD PROBLEMS AND NEW.

THE HISTORICAL APPROACH,

(Specially written for the Waikato ’Times, by “Huia.”)

The history of mankind since the genus became a social and political animal may be said to consist of the development and solution of a series of problems. Some of these, like the poor, have been always with us, and some have developed quite suddenly through force of circumstances. Some still await solution. Others again have arisen out of the solution of still others which have gone before. The development of some of our problems has provoked a crisis, and it has largely depended upon how such a orlslß has been faced and met that the subsequent history of the race has developed. It Is these crises which have often been the turning points in the development of a civilisation, and humanity to-day is faced with a crisis of a major order. This crisis has developed out of the solution of one of the oldest problems known to man; and that problem has been solved so suddenly that the great majority of the world’s people are not ready for the change which the solution of the problem has brought about. The Problem of Scarcity.

The crisis referred to is of course the prevailing economic depression, and the problem which has recently been solved and out of which the crisis has arisen Is the problem of scarcity. At all times, In all ages, and in all civilisations the problem of scarcity has remained grim and sphinxlike to daunt the courage, the ambition, and the faith of man. It has Influenced not merely his outlook on life, his philosophy and his social relationships, but his very religion Itself. The virtue of thrift—which, by the way, has now become a social anachronism —owes its existence to the problem of scarcity.

“Waste not, want not’’; “Many a mickle makes a muckle"; “He that will not work, neither shall he eat,’’ are maxims which, while still an influence in our daily lives, are obviously the by-products of an age of scarcity. The fear of want has haunted individuals, Governments and whole communities, and now that there is no longer any justification for that fear—socially considered —man, who is 99 per cent, a creature of habit, has not yet succeeded in adjusting himself to the new set of circumstances which now surround him.

When man first developed the power of speech—the ability to convey his thoughts to others— ; a great advance In the evolution of the human race had been made. When man first tamed the wild animals to assist him to a fuller enjoyment of life another epoch-making event was chronicled. The development of numerology and the use of the written as w r ell as the spoken word marked another step forward in the history of the race. The development of tools and the discovery of simple mechanical laws gave man a further advantage over the forces of nature. But still the problem ■of scarcity' remained unsolved. ’ The Age of Plenty. Always present, sometimes In the icute form .of famine, this major problem confronted man, challenging all-his wit, all his inventiveness, and existing as a constant threat to his further advancement —nay, even threatening to destroy all that he had built up slowly and painfully through the ages. And In the last 150 years the problem has been solved! The Age of Soarcity is over; the Age of Plenty has begun. Western civilisation, of which we are a part, has ringed the globe. The world is now one economic unit, and with the development of modern transport no civilised community need ever fear the spectre of famine or actual scarcity again. , Moreover, mankind has developed a spirit of kinship, a feeling of unity—the war spirit notwithstanding—which ensures that no large group of civilised people need •fear actual want in the necessaries of life. Herbert Hoover and the American Red Gross fed 14,000,000 starving Russians every day for more than a year shortly after the Great War. " In the last 150 years the rate of progress in the material things of life has not merely been unprecedented—• It' has been phenomenal. Consider some of the following facts. In the year 1800 there were, for instance, no such things as matches—flint, steel and tinder were the order of the day. To the nineteenth centrry we owe the bicycle, the steam locomotive, and the automobile. Our great-grandfathers wrote with quill pens; to-day we have fountain pens and typewriters ready to hand. During that single century the scythe gave place to the harvester and binder, the tallow-dip to the arc-light, the hand-loom to the factory; leather Are buckets were replaced by the modern fire-engine, and the signal-beacon by the telephone and telegraph. To that century we owe lithography, X-rays, the camera, the gramophone, gas, submarines, iron ships, railways, the dynamo, aseptics and anaesthetics, while to-day the cinema, the motor cycle, the aeroplane, wireless telegraphy and poison gas are accepted commonplaces. Man entered that 150 years of progress on horseback, in the stage coach, and In wooden sailing ships; to-day he rides in motor-cars, railway trains, fast ocean liners and aeroplanes.

The Problem of Consumption.

The problem of production has been solved for all time. Let it be repeated that the Age of Scarcity has yielded to the Age of Plenty; but the change has come about too quickly for most of us. Science, to whom we owe the solution of this great problem, lias not been bound by precedents and conventions. Man, in his social institutions and general attitude to life, has clung too obstinately to them. The problem now, which has arisen out. of the solution of the problem of scarcity, is 'one of consumption. Our orthodox economists still regard the economic problem from the standpoint of an age of scarcity which focussed its attention on production. It. is not to them, but to the New Economists, that a bewildered world has to turn for the solution. (To be continued.)