SOCIAL REFORM

Hokitika Guardian, 29 January 1920, Page 3

SOCIAL REFORM

'ADDRESS BY A WELLINGTON PROFESSOR, WELLINGTON, Jan. 26. Professor McKenzie, Professor of English at Victoria College, and a halfbrother of the late Sir John McKenzie, lecturing last evening in the Unitarian Church, deplored the spirit of the age in regard the quick accumulation of wealth. He made the following tentative suggestions with a view to an improvement- in the present social order • (t) Let the maximum earning power of capital be fixed (as far as possible). . (2) Let all kinds of labour andservi-n be classified and assigned an equitable monetary value. (3) Let the legal and medical profession be nationalised on precisely the same lines as the educational profession is at present nationalised, (4) Let tlm sale of all land and property he conducted through a Government bureau, and let the Government experts determine the “ sale value, ’ after conceding, say, some. 5 or 10 per cent in valuation more than the value mutually agreed upon by the State, and the owners for taxation purposes.

(o) Let unearned increment in every instance be wholly secured (by legislation) for (be State or coinnuiiiit.y. (6) Let all industries connected with the necessaries of life by nationalised or run by Guilds or Soviet Councils (under the State’-? auspices) ,»»» d 1,0 1 with u view pi making auv profit out of the community other than what is requited [or the adequate remuneration of all on gaged in (he industry, (ILet all taxation on necessaries of life lie abolished, and let all taxation be levied on land, income, and luxuries, (8) L>t all death duties be exacted and such limits put to the inheritance of money and of property that no ablebodied and sound-minded persons can enter upon life with the right or power to exploit their follow-incn. (9) Let compulsory systems of life insurance, of insurance against sickness and unemployment, and of compensation for injury, be established in connexion with all kinds of industries and

service. .. .. , (10.) Let a State Statistics Unreal' he established f ‘irnish official forecasts and estimates of the number of people that can (so far as can he foreseen) he “productively” employed in tho various professions, triples, and industries, so that the community may bo as far as pnsihlc effectively and efficiently organised for social and national service. (11) Let all men and women be required to equip themselves for sumo definite kind of social service. I'2) Let a license ho required before engaging in the practice of any profession, business, trade, industry, etc.: a standard of efficiency to he insisted upon in every one of them, and the n mil her of licenses isunble to hear a definite relation or ratio to the yuinbor of the population. (13 Lot provision bo made, if possible, in the neighbourhood of the large centres of population and of industry

for establishing State and. municipal farms, fruit and vegetable gardens, and also reclamation works, so that employment can be readily found for any surplus labour power in the various trades and industries, and thus the loss, waste, and demoralisation incident to unemployment be reduced to a minimum, and, if possible, eliminated altogether. (14) Let such a standard of wage or salary be insisted upon in connexion with every business, trade ,industry, etc., that the male employees on completing a reasonable term of apprenticeship be entitled to sufficient wage or salary to maintain a wife and family in comfort. (15) Let the manufacture and sale of all alcoholic liquor and every offence against the accredited liquor laws on the part of the servants of the State engaged in the sale of liquor incur sum. mary dismissal. (16) Recognising the unmistakable fact that the greatest obstacle to the effiecieney of our citizens and to effective economic production is the abuse of alcohol, let heavy penalties be imposed upon all who abuse its use, involving in the case of all except first offenders a term of imprisonment. (17) Recognising the serious evils-in-cident to our social economic- and industrial life from, and particularly the demoralising influence of, the gamblin'habit, let every form of gambling incur the severest of penalties.