MACHINES BLAMED

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 123, 21 November 1932, Page 3

MACHINES BLAMED

ONE CAUSE OF DEPRESSION

Mechanisation of industry resulting in the displacement of human labour is tho principal cause of the present ecouomic troubles of the world, according to Mr. A. Andersou, a prominent Hutt Valley resident, who recently returned from a tour of England and Canada extending over five months.

To a "Post" reporter Mr. Anderson said that he could see no improvement in tho business world in either England or Canada. The first thing he had noticed in England was the enormous, amount of shipping lying idle in the Thames, and to, his mind this and unemployment had been caused in some measure by the high tariffs of other countries and by the high esahange rates. He quoted the "Daily Tones" of Victoria, British Columbia, as his authority for the statement that Canada's unemployed were four times the number they were' two years ago an^l that conditions would grow worse unless the Government changed its high tariff policy which had resulted in economic war with Australia and New Zealand, among others. Unemployment in England was "pretty bad," said Mr. Anderson-. Tariffs and exchange rates played their part in producing it, but the greatest evil of all was the displacement of human labour by machinery. This was progressing so rapidly that the creation of new industries could not check the steady decline of employment. Mr. Anderson instanced a factory nearing completion in New Jersey for the production of rayon yarns. The factory would be entirely mechanical, and production could be carried on for twenty-four hours a day with about three people in control, taking the place of approximately 100 workers. In Mr. Anderson's opinion, if mechanisation' as the cause of- unemployment and trade depression did not receive the attention it merited it might well cause more distress tli an all the other economic problems added together. At the present rate of progress wo would soon reach a stage at which mechanised mass-production would be so perfected that vast factories would be run by a few dozen people in place of thousands. The seriousness of this warranted even the stopping of inventions for a period of years.

To Mr. Anderson's mind conditions in Canada were, if anything, worse than in England. In a back-country town ho had visited there, salmon were bringing only 3 cents each, and tho river was full of lumber waiting tr be sawn, while the mills were idle becauso of huge stocks in hand. Timber was as cheap as the fish. Double-dressed "four-by-two" cost 2 dollars 50 cents a thousand feet, and shingles 1 dollar 50 cents a thousand.

"My general impression was that New Zealand is really better off than other countries, though things are bad here," concluded Mr. Anderson.