TO EASE DRUDGERY

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 17 June 1933, Page 14

TO EASE DRUDGERY

Reduction of Work Time “ILTANY of us have witnessed the change in working hours, first from sun-up to sundown, in the earliest days of this generation, to a twelve-hour day—now we are likely approaching a six-hour day, and the degree of change is much greater than the preceding ones, and consequently more difficult to adjust,” writes Mr S. M. Kin trier in the “Review of Reviews” of America. “No doubt the tendency of the age towards shorter and shorter working time will continue. Furthermore, it is highly probable that as we work more into this new order of things, workers will enter active work a"t a. later period than now, and, similarly, retire at an earlier period in their lives. That production per manpower has been so materially increased is to my mind not the prime cause for alarm. The real menae'e is in the fact that so little progress has been made in balancing the earning power of all producers so that they in turn •could buy continuously the products of others. Under-distribution, not over-production, is our real problem. x “Virtually everybody wants more of the products of our machines than he now has—this was true even in the days of prosperity. The wants of man are never satisfied. Who would advocate retracing our steps and throwing away all our labour-saving machines, in order that we might have more jobs? Surely no one who gives the question serious 'thought. What is needed is a modified plan of operation that will give due consideration to our new order of things, and permit us to enjoy the millennium of freedom from drudgery and leisure for thought and pleasure —the end towards which we have all striven so long and the real purpose for which the machine was devised. “Such a plan to be successful must still hold out rewards for the ones who do the best in still further improving conditions. Human nature has riot changed, and the incentive to do better must still be preserved.”