TOO FEW PRODUCERS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2945, 4 December 1916, Page 10

TOO FEW PRODUCERS

THE OUTLOOK IN UIUTAIN. Sir Leo Cliiozza Money, M.P., has a very reassuring article in tho "London Magazine" on Britain's industrial future 'and.the prospect of work for all. •there are those who fear that at the conclusion of Lostilitics women, will have robbed men of their jobs, and that men therefore ■will find themselves left in the lurch in many occupations," ho writes. "It is forgotten that tlio call lor work in a properly organised community is unlimited. There is a poverty of production and a poverty which :is the result of tho unequal distribution of the results of production, industrial Employment in tho UnitedKingdom. Wage-earners— Males aged 18 years and upwards ... 4,260,000 Females aged 18 years and upward 1,200,000 coys and girls under 18 .... 950 000 Outworkers, chiefly women/. 100^000 Q, . , " r 6,500,000 batoned persons.; 500,000 Total •••■• 7,000,000 , "The poverty of British production in peace I pointed out in the clearest' terms before this war began. We had too few producers. Tho census of production of 1907 gave for -industry the above extraordinary facts. This statement actually includes all but a small proportion of those engaged in producing things in all our mines, factories, and workshops of any- kind. As I wrote in 'The Future of 'Work,' which was published just before the war began: '' 'We see, therefore, that in our great population—whie'i, in 1914, is about 46,000,000, - and which in 1914, is as nearly as possible 44,000,000—observe in passing how emigration has reduced the rate of increase of our population—there were in 1907 only 4,250,000 meiii counting as'a "man" a male person aged 18 years and over, en 7 gaged in mining or .quarrying or manufacturing, and of these about one million arc miners and quarrymen. Our male population, 18 years of age and -Tip-wards, numbered about 13,000,000. So we get the striking fact that of our male population aged 18~ycars and over, only about one in three is engaged directly in producing industrial wealth. As a matter of fact, if wc are to abolish poverty in our land, it is necessary to draft not only more women but more men into productive industry. Tims only i can we get that plentiful supply of material commodities which is necessary to obtain bettor houses, better home furnishings, better supplies of materials for comfort, culture, sport, and.recreation. We must have more producers. And we are going fo have them. Woman, in increasingly aiding that production of wealth in tlio future, will achicvo her economic independence, and by that road lead us to a purified and ennobled society."