AFTERAVAR PLANNING.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 February 1940, Page 4

AFTERAVAR PLANNING.

'PITOUGII the probable duration of lhe war has yet to be determined, it does not follow that proposals relating' to the economic problems that will arise when hostilities cease should be regarded as premature. Tn speaking of the peace aims of British Labour—aims which look first of all to the overthrow of the, Nazi regime—and of tasks to be performed after the war, Dr Hugh Dalton is reported to have said that Labour foresaw “great international public works, such as the complete transformation of the whole transport system by rail, road and canal in centra] and south-eastern Europe, and likewise great works in colonial development jointly undertaken by many nations in Africa and elsewhere.” A neglect of competent economic planning and action after the last war helps in no small degree to account for its having been followed by another war. It most certainly is desirable that sustained thought should be given in all countries to the measures of economic adjustment which will be demanded imperatively in. the post-war period that, lies meantime in an uncertain future.' Whether great public, works in Europe or elsewhere can make more than a temporary and limited contribution to the solution of the problems involved is at best doubtful. In the extent to '.which public works assist development and production and make for social betterment, they are, generally speaking, desirable. As we have seen and are seeing in New Zealand, however, it is only too easy to seek in an unwarranted expansion of public works an excuse for failing to deal with more immediately urgent and more fundamental economic problems. This country is not by any means the only example in point. In the United States, during the period of the New Deal, enormous sums have been spent on public works, and yet the United States today has an estimalexl total of some nine million unemployed. The underlying problem is that of enabling all who need it Io find employment in normal, productive and self-sustaining industry. It has been well said that we need democratic co-operation within the nation and democratic co-operation between lhe nations in order that this problem may lie solved. No greater contribution can he made to ultimate peace than in solving tin* problem of unemployment as it presents itself, side by side 'with immensely increased powers ol production, in individual nations and nowhere more conspicuously than in some of those that are industrially most advanced.

According to an American iiiilliorily of standing, Hr Stuart Chase, in the United States in a hundred years productive power lias increased forty-fold, while the standard of life of the people lias only doubled. In the extent Io which individual nations remedy lhe disastrous waste of productive power made manifest in facts like these more will be done both to establish economic welfare within their borders, and to open the way to sal isfactory economic relations between nations, than by the most; elaborate and ambitions schemes of public works designed to tide over a period of emergency. Il is reasonably certain, for example, that in overcoming its internal problem of iinem ployment, the United Stales hvonld make a far greater am! more helpful contribution to the future peace of the world than it can make in anv other wav,