UNEMPLOYMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 239, 9 October 1928, Page 6

UNEMPLOYMENT.

MAW, NOT MACHINERY, TO BLAME.

(To the Editor.)

Two of your correspondents arc concerning themselves as to the part played by modern labour-saving machinery in causing unemployment. It is true that certain of these inventions have tended to throw large numbers of men out of work, but they are not the chief cause of unemployment. That evil is the result of gross bad management, as any person of ordinary common sense can see. The reason why certain modern inventions have thrown men out of employment is that these «nfta have not rightly been applied. They are used to increase profits and not to shorten man's labours and make life easier. Is it not a fact that in spite of all our wonderful inventions —the results of centuries of thought and work on the part of disinterested students, scientist! and mechanics—the average man is no happier and no better off in essentials than his medieval ancestor? When machinery is used to lighten man's labour to give him leisure to develop the spiritual and intellectual sides of his nature and to ensure for him better living conditions, we need have no fears as to what will happen to mankind. But before this Utopian state of affairs can come ab«ut there will have to be a change from the present system. Force must give place to co-operation tyranny to industrial peace, and the golden rule must replace the false materialistic cry of "Every man for himself." ZEALAXDIA.