BRAIN WORKERS HELD RESPONSIBLE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 4007, 8 October 1929, Page 3

BRAIN WORKERS HELD RESPONSIBLE.

The contention that as brain workers have,to a large extent created the present unemployment situation by labour-saving inventions, in equity they-ought to bear the lion’s share of an unemployment insurance charge is advanced by the Rev. J. J. North in the New Zealand “Baptist.” “VVe never see a crowd of museularfiSeu looking mutely on while a great shovel excavates a foundation which used to offer them weeks of steady work without thinking fiercely about a few things,” Ml\ North says. “We are not so touched by the swarms of musicians thrown out. of regu,lai work by talkies. But it is nevcrtheless part of the world-wide problem. We have saved so much laboqr by mechanical invention that the, streets of all cities are black with the slouching and pathetic figures of men who would work if they could, but who cannot because of the machine. The man out of woirik in conditions like ours must not be treated as though lie were half a criminal. He must come automatically under some insurance scheme. We want particularly to stress the point that the burden ought not to fall simply on hand workers.”