PRODUCTIVE WORK.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20180, 7 March 1931, Page 8

PRODUCTIVE WORK.

CURE FOB UNEMPLOYMENT. % - : i . ■ v. -i (PBOII <?U»- OWK CORBBePO3JZ)ID*T.) LONDON, January 29. Sir Ernest Potter, chairman bf Potters, Limited, and ex-president of tho British Engineers' Association, responding to the toast of "National Trade"'at the annual dinner of the Fromo -(Somerset) and District Manufacturers' Association, said: —"One Government aftor another has given occasion to the people of this country to believe that there are inexhaustible sources of wealth in the country upon which they can'draw for every conceivable purpose, »jud, actuated by % spirit of shoddy humanitp*ianisni, burdens havo been accepted which shouldj and would, have been rejected if common-sense had been called in. Unemployment is the basic causß of the 'evjls which affliet our country, for which a cure must be found if the standard of living of our people is to be maintained.' And the ■ (Sure for unemployment is productive work. So long au huge quantities of food and manufactured products, which wo could and should produce for ourselves, are allowed to come freely into tho country, it cannot said that we havo exhausted the means of finding employment for our people. "My own opinion is that history will point to this time as a time of national laziness. In plain English, we Bhall bo described as a people lacking the energy, tjie:wit, or the will to set ourselves to work—while all the time our needs wero being supplied by the exertions of foreigners who were paid out of the accumulated savings of our ancestors and tho mortgaging of the lives of our children."