The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET. AUCKLAND WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1929 THE PRINCE ON UNEMPLOYMENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 593, 20 February 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET. AUCKLAND WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1929 THE PRINCE ON UNEMPLOYMENT

THOUGH an effort has been made in high administrative places * to restrain the Prince of Wales from telling the Empire his shocked impressions of the acute distress on the British coalfields, he still succeeds, with admirable courage and wisdom, in speaking through the political gag. And it may he said fairly, without impertinence, that his Royal Highness is more effective in speech than those politicians who, on similar subjects, are content to speak through their hats.

The Prince took advantage of an important occasion at a dinner to mark the social side of the great British Industries Fair, to refer plainly to the plight of industry generally and also to the fact that the distress which aroused his emotion a few weeks ago is not confined to the coal districts. Thousands of people in other industries are equally distressed. This condition inspired him to urge the leaders of industry to scrap obsolete plants and adopt modern equipment and methods. “Given these aids to production the British workman would hold his own with anybody in the world.” In addition this keen observer of Empire affairs noted that another British need was efficient, up-to-date salesmanship. Did the standard of British salesmanship (he asked") equal that of British workmanship? He did not pause to answer liis own question, for the simple reason that it answered itself in what parliamentarians would call the negative. It is to be hoped that Mr. Baldwin and all the other Conservatives in British politics and industry will put the Prince’s timely wisdom in their pipes and smoke it. In view of the near approach of a general election in Great Britain, there must be expected a great flood of impressive propaganda about the revival of British trade and industry. Against that political rejoicing and optimism of the Ins, the Outs will not hesitate to set running a strong ebb-tide of pessimism and discontent. Both, of course, will be exaggerated for poliitcal purposes, and possibly the highest wave either way will decide the elections in May or June. The plain, unadulterated truth is nothing more and nothing iess than the actual conditions of distress in the coalfields and other industrial areas. Great Britain’s greatest problem, like New Zealand’s at the moment, is to find employment for enforced idlers in useful occupation and production. Hitherto, the quickest and easiest short cut to a temporary solution has been the political expedient: of granting doles or providing public money for unemployment relief works. Everybody now knows that such a system of relief is merely an extravagant palliative which invariably aggravates the disease instead of curing it. In Great Britain, as in this country, there still is scope for national reconstruction and the development of industry, but the trouble lies in the necessity for over-riding prejudices and vested interests. It is easy to cry out against Government interference with this, that, or something else, hut where is the sense of protest if non-interference leaves private enterprise wallowing in obsolete ideas and methods amidst an increasing muddle of unemployment for competent industrial workers? Great Britain, however, slowly is breaking away from hidebound tradition. Its old free trade god is threatened with dethronement. Already, although the word “Protection” is never whispered, no fewer than 169 different industries are protected by a stiff Customs duty against foreign competition. This, for the sake of the past and ancient .shibboleths, is called “safeguarding.” Five years ago, for example, motor-cars were admitted free to Great Britain; fo-dav the duty on each one is £33 6s 8d per cent, of its value. Even beer has frothed up from £1 18s on 36 gallons in 1913 to £23 11s last year. And so on and on in 167 different ways of protecting or safeguarding British industries. Here, many politicians and others even better educated than responsible legislators shudder at the request of industrialists for more protection.