TOPICS OF THE DAY

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20694, 3 January 1939, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY

Employment Guarantee ? “If every employer took on sufficient additional workpeople tomorrow to absorb all the unemployed in their own trades, very few would fail to dispose of their products at profitable prices,” said Mr A. S. Coinyns Carr, K.C., speaking in Yorkshire recently. “They do not do it because the latent demand would not materialise unless all or most of them did it at the same time. How can they be induced to take the risk 1 Only by Government guarantee that none of should lose by it. This guarantee could become operative only in a small proportion of eases, particularly, perhaps, in the export trades. It could not, in its nature, exceed, and might in terms be limited to, the amount now’ spent on unemployment.” Democracy’s Difficulties

“We agree that in England the democratic ideal is best and most suited to our native character, but democracy has many dangers and difficulties. One of the greatest is indifference or apathy,” said Lord Leverhulme in a recent speech. “The totalitarian ideal gives people ready-made ideas, and spares them the trouble of making up their minds. Another danger is that democracy may degenerate into a kind of periodic auction in wfiich people give their votes to the highest bidder. The greatest safeguard against these dangers is an educated electorate, capable of judging for itself what in the long run will be best for the community as a whole.”