Rev. R. J. Campbell on War-Time Wealth.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 169, 28 April 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

Rev. R. J. Campbell on War-Time Wealth.

DESTITUTION ABOLISHED FOR A TIME, ARE WE TO LET IT RETURN?

"REQUISITE LUXURY" POSSIBLE IN PEACE.

In the •'lllustrated Sunday Heiald ' of January 16 appeared a friend!/ criticism of my article of the week previous. Jt is from the pen of Mr. James Sherliker, and traverses, or professes to traverse, statements of mine in the article- in question which was mainly concerned with the problem of destitution and its relation to the war.

There is practically no difference between Mr. Sherliker and myself, as 1 will show, and the only reason why 1 return to the subject this week is mat 1 am anxious to get as many people as possible to consider the main point of the article, that the war has proved that destitution can be got rid of, and speedily, if we are really in earnest about it. And if we are not in earnest about it we had better look out

when the war stops, for then the distress may be terrible.

Mr. Sherliker:— "There IS poverty in this war. and a great deal of it. The war lias increased incomes, I admit, but it has ;;lso increased the cost of living. There are hundreds of thousands ji people in this country, pre-war widows and the Ike, who know nothing of separation allowances, but who, unfortunately, k-iow a great deal about the extra "cost of food. The war nAS brought poverty about; it has increase:! poverty." The article: "Individuals once prosperous have been impoverished L.v.eigi the sudden stoppage of their particular business or source of income owing to the diversion of the nation's energies into other channels. . . We can only marvel v.t the patience and self-control exhibited by these unfortunate ones whom economic disturbance lias victimised. We hear almost nothing about them, so silent are they and so ready to accept the inevitable; but they exist.."* "Here we are hurting our accufulated stores of wealth into hell, the hell of war, and the workers as a whole were never so well off."

WHAT NEED NOT BE. Mr. Shcr'iker: " 1 agree with Mr. Campbell that there need not be hungry montiiu when the war is over: there need not have been hungry mouths before the war began. But when he says that no honest man ought to dread the loss of a job after peace is declared he tells us tliat he has never been out cf a job himself, that he lias never had to look for one, and that ho knows nothing of the haunting anxiety as to what the morrow may bring. . . . When the war : s ended we shall return to the old conditions—or worse. . . . What about when the mill.on boys come home to return to their former occupations? Wiiat about when at last half the munition factories close down? . . . Will Mr. Campbell explain why no honest man will then need to dread the loss of e. job?'' Evidently my critic lias missed the point altogether here. He then goes on to point out the phiin economic fact, as he calls it, that for a long time there will be more men than we can find woi'K for. consequently unemployment-, and probably too a fall of wages. Employers will"not be able to nay to the State and to the wage-earners too. The whole piupos< of the article was to show that this need not ie. Mr. Sherliker sa>'> things will be again as they were before the n:i.and worse. Wii! they:-' That do pends mien ourselves. From what we only too sadly know of our muddling, bungling methods as a nation they very likely will, but not if wo prepare aga'hest it. I did not say that no honest man would need to dread the loss of a job. 1 say lie ought net to have to dread it, and there is no need that he should. The paradox of the war is that what the public generally thought we could not do in t.nie of peace when we wore piling up wraith we actually have done in time of war when we are recklessly squandering wealth. No one can deny that. Jt is a truly marve'lous thing. For the time being we have abolished destitution. Are we going to let it return? Can the community afford to lot the wasteful struggles

of capital and labour continue!-' Are we going to be fools enough simply to bring our soldiers home again and discharge them, while at the same moment closing down the munition factories, and throwing this vast mass of unorganised lab-

our idle upon the market? Again I say it is not unlikely, judging from our previous methods. Cannot measures be taken beforehand to prevent it 'r They could if we would. The herd .Mayor of London lias already t. hen action upon one aspect of it iii tailing togeiivr a great conference at Guildhall representing all the big commercial rod industrial towns, banker> and men-bants, and employers of labour. The object of tlrs gathering was to organise British trad.' and commerce so as to prevent the enemy countries from gaming an undue auvau. time over us aga.n in these respects in spite of u'l our lighting. This is all to the good. "We can but rejoice that H is being thought of 'ti time. But we want mere than that.

We want a bold policy adopted with regard to labour. At the risk of being tedious I iiiii-it remind my readers once l more of what the war has PKOVICI) it has proved that in a period of waste

and destruction we can suddenly alford 10 pav .1 living wage to practically all v.orku>. SI'DDKN'i.Y. reinember'! All :il oi.ee in' wanted all the labour we could Let. and we used it and pa.d for i: at a higte r rate than before the war began. True, the cost of living has gone nit too, loit not .n the same proport on. This ,- duly a per on il opinion ', gran: and would lake some pro.!:).; ■>\ hull i ha\e not the means of doing ■■'• ore,cut. But '- it not plain to ev< iyboilv thai there is not the same amount of distress about thai ther • hi- lr . n in v. inter lime in for ' '■'. ar- - Ai i . Sheiki;< !■ advises the workers to ,:\\ ■ ;n,rn.; the bird t:;,:, - coming. Ar ■ ll,u\ snv ir„ " Sm b i> nol the evidelii e Thev leel more : o;,!ioii;.',!\ off than ti,e\ ueie, and no wonder, but it s |,;inll\ to b" expected thai tliev should ~-. ■m' i k'v n alls ■ tiie ;ie. essity of laying'by for a rainy da v. Tbev feel a;..,vb .'•!'. v.o'iid I. el when entering upon a p 'Mod of ' oarativc oimlelie < ;I f|e V |,;,|, bine, thai t! i'V v.ani lo • ■r.je.v "PI'SSIUI.K Al'Tl.li TIIK WAR.' \,,.t |e| |;,e i, p. .'!. il this s po:- ;,:, hi fin,' of war it should be still : ~ e i.e.. hie :ift a' the war. The leafs ',.,-,,. !,,,„ ~;-,,v0l groundless of tllo'-e ■■ ' ~ o's -.', d i! ; ' the -0.-ia' 1 '. !-' -f .n

of the few years immediately preceding the war was laying "too heavy a burden upon our resources and would drive capital abroad, etc There is a limit to driving capital aborad. Capital is only stored up wealth, or power over production; and wealth is produced from two thing.', labour and land. Unless we send old England itself abroad we shall not kr-0 all on." capital in any eventuality. .What are we doing with it now? What have we been doing witn ever since tins horrible strife began? In a few months we have tiling away with both hands a hundred times the amount Mr. Lloyd George would have dared to ask for to put an end to destitution. It was there to throw away, and there

is plenty still behind it. The war has not hit us yet as it lias hit other nations. We scarcely know what it means as compared with any other belligerent. And the secret is that we are going on producing all the time. Our mills and factories are not idle. We are earning the wherewithal to exchange for the commodities necessary to feed an dmaintain our population at home and our armies abroad — thanks to the Fleet.

We are doing this while employing in productive occupations only a tithe of the number we should in tune of peace; that minority, including many women, is providing what the rest ol us live and fight with. It must be so. Where else could it come from? Wealth is not money; it is goods. Neutral nations do not maintain us out of charity. They supply what we want because we are able to pay for it by sending an equivalent in articles of value overseas.

And if that can be, done under such conditions as prevail to-day it cou!;! and should he done as a matter of duty and national v.cMbeing wiien all the workers are at work again and war's wastage has l>e.cn stopped.

11l a suggestive article, Mr. 11- ( Well, says:—

Germany is feeling the pinch of the war much more even than Fran e, which is habitually parsimonious, and instinctively cleverly econ n.i ; al, and Russia which is hardy ;nd insensitive. Great Britain lias really only begun to feel the stress. She has probably suffered economically no more than has Holland or Switzerland. . She has not even looked yet at the German financial expedients of a year a<:o.

WHEN' THE CRY OF HUNGER fS HEARD. There is no more clear-headed writer on economic subjects living to-day than Mr. We'ls, and his words carry weight. It wil! be time enough to talk aoout this country being hard hot by the war when tho try of hunger begins to be heard as it already has been in other countries: but, please God, if we are wise it never will he heard here. It would be a tragedy indeed if we had to wait till after the war to hear it.

To get back to the- problem of sotting the worker to work. Do not let us make the mistake we were making bofoiv the war and shout our non possumiis liefore we have even tried. Here are two propositions which I will challenge anybody to confute. First, cv e ry able-bodied man with two hands can he enabled to produce something of benefit <u the community. Secondly, there is no such thing as over-production., though there may bo over-proportional production. >

As regards the former of these twain 1 fall back on tiio old commonplace-

and almost apologise for referring to it, tio.i taut is tne matter but distribution, it is so obvious—that it is not producThere would be no drre poverty but for the inequitable distribution of the means ol life. Cure that, and you have cut at the root of most of our economic ills. As a people we may be very poor for a good while after the war, but nobody needk' destitute. We shall begin to build up again from Hie hour peace is declared.

I rein<»nber hearing Mr. Sidney Webb say once that n all property were shared equally to-morrow we might still have to call ourselves poor; there wool J not be enough to make- us rich all round. "But," he added, •'destitution is ciirabie, and. without long delay." That is it. Poverty does no one any harm, though luxury easily may. 1 am not at all sure that civilisation .vou'd not be better in a hundred ways it it were poorer than it is—and it s !:!.o to be noor enough after the war. But poverty with simplicity and clean living spells happiness; destitution spells misery and degradation.

WHKiiK CUTS C'OAIK KUOAI. Jolin Stuart Mill pointed out about two yen 'ration-- ago that there may ho teal ami acute distre s in times, of ge.ienil prosperity owing to the shifting of markets or introduction of labour-sav-ing appliances. And when that happens, kesa.d. measures should be taken by tlie community as a whole to title over the period of readjustment. Ought we not to" he getting ready for that now by organising industry on a nation:;! bas's without destroying individual <••:■

t rprise. The eominunity .s all the neher by the number of commodities pi'oilii. E.i at any one time so long as we do not go short of others that are as lioeossarv or more necessary.

Willi all our ought let us jo.u together to set all id'e hands going alter t.he war, and to see to it that none oi sm-ii lab.on- is misapplied or ill-requit-ed. As liuskiii s,,;d in "Knto this l,a-t":

" loixury is indeed possible in the future- -innocent and reuiiisiio ; luxury | or ;,U, ami by the help of all : but luxury at pr. sent can only he enjoyed by the ignorant. The cruellest man living eould 110 l si- at Ills fe;: t. Hide's he Ml' Mindfold. liaise the veil boldly ; fa' e the h'J;t : and if, as yet, the light "I the eve can onlv be through Wars, and the light of the body through sackcloth, go thou forth wi ping, bearing nreeiousTiod, until the time come, and lite king, don, when Christ's g'l't of bread and heipiest of neace shall he Knto this h,-i r,s unto thee : and when, for ' nrtli's -ev.'ix'd midliiuiles of the wicked and the weary, there shall be holier r.rnii- , ibat'on than that ol the narrow home. ~nd ' aim economy, where the W .bed ', ~,,(. not from' trouble, hut I'n.m t,-,,inl ; ng '-I'd the Weary are at r. -t." 11. J. CAMPBELL.