The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 1914. PROBLEMS OF IGNORANCE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 2, 23 April 1914, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 1914. PROBLEMS OF IGNORANCE.

A proposal is now afoot to establish m Australia an organisation whose principal business it will be to attack public economic questions in a systematic manner, and, after complete investigation, which shall be free from bias, either social or political, to make known its conclusions and endeavour to impress upon the community their true significance. Anyone who has given thought to this subject must have arrived at the conclusion that many of the problems which at present baffle the world’s best intellects in the effort to discover a practical and acceptable solution are, as a Sydney contemporary points out, really “problems of ignorance.” Were it possible to collect and collate all the factors which go to constitute the problem it would virtually solve itself. There are others, however, which are the product of causes more or less new to the people of to-day, and are of such i nature that past experience cannot be applied to them with any degree of confidence. They are the outcome of a state of more than usually rapid social transition, whose pace can only bo estimated by the present, without feeling any assurance whether it will he accelerated or slackened. It is in connection with this development, which is mainly manifested in the industrial world, that instruction in the probable economic effects upon the true and permanent welfare of the class, the community, and finally of the nation, that light is wanted. The definite tendency for the present is not only for each class, but for each subdivision of each class, to seek for that which promises the most apparent and, therefore, probably the most superficial and transitory benefit to itself. In few respects are we in greater doubt and darkness than with regard to the reaction of increased traga* upon the cost of living, and yot it i» a question on which every employer and every employee should have

soma definite convictions before making un endeavour to ascertain, not only what is iair, but to "hut extent the improvement in wages is going to secure permanent improvement in the conditions of living. Ihe great hulk of the people live for the day with but little regard for the ultimate fate of those who are to come afterwards. During the last twenty years the average standard of living has been materially raised. Vt ages have increased and prosperity has been maintained, but it is quite reasonably contended by thinkers who have deeply studied this great problem, that the process must reach a limit, beyond which it cannot advance without detriment to both employers and employees, and the community at large. The new association which it is proposed to start in Australia to study such economic questions, will find plenty of work in this and similar directions. It will be the work of its members, so far as possible, to satisfy themselves and afterwards to impress upon the people what courses may be wise and feasible; to indicate where there is a likelihood of the destruction of industries to which so many may look for their livelihood; and if there seems reasonable hope of so doing, to point out how such destruction may be avoided.