TWO NECESSITIES

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 16853, 5 June 1920, Page 7

TWO NECESSITIES

WORK MORE AND SPEND LESS, LAEOT73 PROBLEMS ON THE CONTINENT.

(srEciAr/LT wnrrrsx ror. "the mass."}

(By Mas Julian Grande.) GENEVA, April 0 Next month Switzerland is to take a referendum on the question whether she :s to join the League of Nations or not, a question which must be decided by a majority, not of voters only of cantons. The International Labour Bureau has informed the Swiss that, should this vote- he affirmative, then Geneva will become its headquarters, as well as those of the League of Nations. Already a huge building has been provisionally engaged ior its offices, and the moment Switzerland s decision i« definitely known, supposing it to be ve=, the staff will begin its work, and an important Congress will meet to discuss how the world in general, particularly the world of Labour, is to b.-> reorganised so that more is produced and less spent. This necessity for more production and less expenditure is obvious, in a country sye'u as Switzerland, \ynic;i was never involved in tho war. Every day makes it cleaver, at any rate to those living on the Continent, that »vc have been following a wrong track, and have followed it so long that wo shall now have difficulty in retracing our steps and saving ourselves irora nu ?i; Everywhere the cost of living is still increasing, yet nowhere are we doing anything to decreaso it. Wo all coinplain of this dearncss, and vet, according to one of the best Swiss economists, we have ohiefiv ourselves to blame for it. He tells-us plainly, in short, that wo waste more and more time, we work shorter and shorter hours, we concentrate our energies less and less upon our work, while we are doing it, and all the time we demand higher and higher wages and salaries, whereas the only way to reduce the cost of living is—not for numbers of us to livo in. semi-starvation and beggary, not at nl!: —but for all of us to work as long as we can, and as hard as we can, concentrating our strength and our attention on our work to our utmost capacity, Nand restricting our expenditure and limiting our wants as much as possible, until supply and demand have bocome again more equal. ' The experience of foremen in factories, bank managers, post office superinten.dents, and, in fact, superintendents everywhere else, is that ill general old hands realise the dignity and importance of labour better than the young. They are more inclined to .respect their work and less disposed to dawdle oyer it and spin, it out, without troubling in the least whether it is well or m done. It has been also found that thoso men who spent threo or tour years either at the front or doipg P 1 ~ tary service or guarding frontiers, have had their capacity for steady, honest labour very seriously impaired. ihc construction of trenches and tortmea- j tions and th© making of munitions not only impeded the manufacture of the ordinary necessaries of life during tho war, but also disaccustomed men from their usual productive occupations. J In certain countries, particularly in j the United States, France, and Belgium, this fact that we must produce more and not less, work harder and not less hard, and be saving and not extravagant, if we are ever to right our- j selves, is being realised, at any rate by the most clear-sighted persons. Another cause which has _ undoubtedly tended to make people disgusted with steady hard work —a cause which lifts operated m neutral countries quite as much as in belligerent—is that so-many peoplo have grown easily and suddemy rich- bv one or other of the doubtful methods of war profiteering—schiebert.um, as it is called in Switzerland. \\ hy should they work hard, not a few persons argue, when these profiteers, many of whom never worked at all, but are merely much more unprincipled > than, the average mortal, aro rolling in their illgotten wealth? Some persons in Europe aro inclined to consider that inferior, and for years, oven in Switzerland, very much rained food, is one cause of decreased prido in and capacity for work; but it is doubtful whether this has much to do with the matter, because in our British Dominions, I believe in New Zealand, where the people certainly never suffered from" scarcity or inferiority of food, there is likewise 3 a great deal of "go slow," and- sometimes even it is | "Jead slow." The Swiss Public Utility Association | at their conference the other day insisted above all on tho necessity, especially now, of a full utilisation of time, and a proper realisation of its value and importance. Teachers, they urge, must impress these points upon their scholars at school. Just now, they also urge, is no time to reduco the_ working day to eight hours at most.- No nation and no individual, it is contended, has any more valuable asset cr possession than time, and one of tho surest criterions for judging a nation's commercial capacity, power of mental concentration, and grade of civilisation is to ob-servo-how far its people understand how to make good uso of their time, or how far they waste it. The Congfess of the Swiss I'ublic Utility Association also condemned the habit of treating labour too much as if tho labourers were, so many machines or tools—that is, paying a man or a woman a certain faxed sum after a ccrtain time, irrespective of whether ho or she is worth it or not. This, they urge, discourages initiative, and puts a premium on inferior work. The most capaoie work-peoplo aro simply not encouraged to exert themselves. Above all, it is insisted, tho main task of this transition time through which we aro passing is increased production, and not diminished production, and at the same time restriction of requirements and consumption, and not frivolous expenditure on pleasure, luxury, and enjoyment. "Rich and poor, young and old, must clearly realise thift nil unproductive consumption cf products and money, time, and physical strength, must be put a stop to" until equality between supply and demand for inuispensable articles has been restored. Ouiy by producing more and consuming less can wo chock the, rise in the cost of living.'' . And. indeed, unless we do realise this, and act upon the realisation, it is increasingly difficult to £00 liow the struggle for existence can be carricd on. j Franco lias just appointed a Com-j mission of iivo to enquire how she can reduco her expenditure—in short, how sho can economise; and now Dr. August Engel, formerly Austrian Finance Minister, is strongly advocating the necessity of Austria also appointing what ho calls an "Economising Commission." Austria's deficit for the present financial, year, ending June 30th next, must, according to present estimates, amount to more than 10,000,000.0C0 kronen, and Dr. Engel complains that although the Government itself seems beginning to. grasp the fact that it must economise i somewhere, nevertheless the various'

separate Departments do not seem to i have done anything of the kind. I>r. ■

Engel's conclusions arc precisely those j or the Swiss economists, and tie tells 1

tho Austrians that they must contrive to spend less, be more modest in their demands, and, as regards work, "put their best foot foremost." More work, moro production, more industriousness, better use of all means of production— m these ways, and in these only, can the present state of things be improved. Meanwhile, however, the Austrians ara asking how they can be thrifty and economical when a suit of clothes'costs 12,000 kronen, and more (at ordinary exchange £480); a tram ride in Vienna, for instance, costs 2 kronen, and they have neither shoes nor strength to tramp long distances on foot; every inland letter costs 2 kronen postage, a bos of matches costs 1 krone, and, 12

kronen must bo paid for tavms, .1 ironed. . . Hodc is everywhere expressed tnar when'tho International Labour Bitreau begins its work, it may help to had solution for Rome of theso labour ftnu production problems, and thus imprcne conditions which are becoming intolerable.