MORE WORK AND MORE SAVING.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2332, 22 September 1921, Page 2

MORE WORK AND MORE SAVING.

AN appeal for commtm sense was made by Mr Walter Leaf in addressing a meeting of business men in London, at which a resolution was carried emphasising “the absolute need for greater industry and thrift.” He said political doctors were old-fashioned, and still relied on Acts of Parliament and Orders in Council. He believed it would be good for the health of the body politic if the only Acts of Parliament that were allowed to pass were those repealing other Acts. They must turn from Acts of Parliament to those fundamental economic, laws which, human nature being what it was, and the circumstances of the times being what they were, could not be transgressed or ignored without disastrous consequences. Unless it could be stamped on the mind of the nation that redistribution of wealth was not increase of wealth, that waste, whether public or private, in luxury and in other ways was a direct diminution of wealth, and that wealth could only he increased by increasing products beyond the cost of production, the prospect would be gloomy indeed. While it was jtpon Capital chiefly that the increase of products must depend, a heavy responsibility rested both on Capital and Labour, which had been pulling in opposite directions when they should have been pulling together. What was needed above all things was co-operation between the various classes of the community. It was painful and humiliating to have to take a lesson from a beaten enemy. Germany through her defeat had learned the lesson of the importance of unity of effort, by which alone she was now going ahead of us. Let us beware in time, or we might lie brought to realise that the.fruits of victory were more bitter even than the fruits of defeat.