The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, 20, 1918. RECONSTRUCTION PROBLEMS.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 November 1918, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, 20, 1918. RECONSTRUCTION PROBLEMS.

Peace will bring problems hardly less pressing and important than war brought. The British as a nation were unready for war, and 'how they triumphed over all difficulties shows what can be done by a united, courageous, determined and resourceful nation, ably led. If the same qualities are exercised in connection with the peaee problems, then we need not fear for the Old Country. Mr Lloyd George, to whose splendid leadership the winning of the war is largely due, is again leading the way and showing the nation how to approach the new problems of peace. He appeals for unity and the co-operation of all parties. He slays the old shibboleth that a strong opposition is necessary for good government. What is needed, he says, is a union of the best brains and the best traditions of every party. He shows that the situation in Europe is full of perilous possibilities, and emphasises the necessity for a steady government that can preserve the Empire's position of influence and authority in the world's affairs which it has gained by its sacrifices arid efforts in the cause of human liberty and progress. He i pledges himself to raise the standard of living of the workers and generally to improve the social conditions at Home. He rightly stresses the high percentage of physical unfitness, revealed by the recruiting statistics, which he describes as a disgrace to a proud and prosperous country. "Hundreds of thousands of men in thenprime," he adds, "have broken physique because tHey are underfed, ill-housed and over-worked. Perhaps many are poisoned by excessive drinking, to which they are driven by squalor. There must be a real national effort to put this right." These are encouraging words from a man who has tackled unprecedented problems and overcome them all, and who is a man of action that will carry any reform through to the end. It is an anomaly that in a country so great as England has proved herself to he that such a large proportion—nearly a fourth of the population—have been illhoused, ill-clothed, ill-fed, and illeducated. It has taken the mostj terrible war in history to awaken the nation to the danger of such a monstrous condition of things. The war has completely revised our notions as to what is possible and impossible. The nation can never again allow millions of its people, by no fault of their own, to pass through life so severely handicapped. They have never had a living wage, by which is meant that they never had sufficient to provide for the reasonable human needs living in a civilised community. As Mr S. Rountree says in his new book on "The Human Needs of Labor"— "The day is past in which we could afford to compromise between the desires of the few and the needs of the many, or to perpetuate conditions in which large masses of the people are unable to secure the bare, necessaries of mental and physical efficiency. The war has left us with a debt to the dead which must be paid to the living in terms of life and health and opportunity. The nation cannot refuse to discharge that supreme debt." Mr Rountree has gone very minutely into the amount of food required by men and women to keep them in a state of physical fitness, and the cost of that food. "The great mass of opinion is in favor of a standard which gives approximately 115 grains of protein and 3500 calories of fuel energy per man per day. At the prices in York in 1914 that dietary would cost 4s 4d per man per week, for woman, 3s 6d, and for each child 2s sd. Thus we get a total of 15s Id as the minimum sum which must be spent per week upon food for a man, wife and three young children. The full weekly bill is thus set out: Food, 15s Id; rent, 6s; clothing, ss; fuel, 2s 6d; household sundries, Is 8d; personal .sundries, ss;'total, 35s 3d. Discussing whether industry can afford a vast increase in its wage bill, Mr. Rowntree says that of all methods of increasing wages the most important is "an increase in the production of industry .

. . . . , we cannot limit its possibilities. The war has shown that when the-need arose huge improvements could be made with incredible rapidity in process after process; and industry could be • so organised that, without adding,, to the strain on the individual; worker, the outpufc was-enormous~< ly increased. If development inthis direction continues steadily after the war,.and the-additional wealth created, or the economies*; effected, are^devotedsasif sible to the payment; liaings wage longs step towards'the solutianrofijouri problem." The .argument behind* jMr. Rowntree's- figures-is late.-Mr.

the High Court of Australia, who made this statement: "Men accept the doom, the blessing of work; they do not dispute the necessity of the struggle with Nature for existence. They are willing enough to work; but even good work does not necessarily insure a proper human subsistence, and when they protest against this condition of things they are told that their aims are too 'materialistic.' Give them relief from their materialistic anxiety; give them reasonable certainty that their essential material needs will be met by honest work and you release infinite stores of human energy for higher efforts, for nobler ideals when "Body gets its sop and holds its noise, and leaves soul free a little." The social problems facing Britain can be solved if they are approached in the right spirit, and it is very encouraging to find the Unionist and Liberal leaders associating themselves with Mr. Lloyd George in his social reconstruction policy. If the standard of living is raised—and it can, and must, be—; if the "submerged tenth" can be rescued and made self-reliant and contented citizens, well fed, well clothed, well housed, well educated, England will have .accomplished in peace as great a victory as she has won on the battlefields of Europe. In New Zealand our social reconstruction problems are not as pressing as in England. Still, they exist, and have to be tackled at onee, calling for the exercise of wise leadership and the sympathetic co-operation of all possessing a regard for the welfare of the returned soldiers and the working classes.