Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 1940. JUSTICE TO THE SOLDIER.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 August 1940, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 1940. JUSTICE TO THE SOLDIER.

, A GREAT deal of what was said by the representatives of A the several parties in the House of Representatives during the debate on Wednesday on the Soidiers Guarantee Bill introduced by the member for Grey Lynn, Mr J. A. Le , - have been taken for granted. The form of introducing a B a measure bound to be ruled out by Mr Speaker because a private member is not competent, under the rules of Parliament y procedure, to move an appropriation ot public ™oney- as adopted merely as a means of promoting a general cliscrssuon on the subject involved. On the general question of the tieat ment of soldiers on their return to civil life it may be supposed, however, that there is no difference of opinion worth speaking about among New Zealanders. It would be a y backward and reactionary citizen of the Dominion who did not ho that our soldiers, on completing their war service should be oiver everv opportunity of re-establishing themselves as advantageously as possible in. civil life. To afford these, opportunities is not so much a matter of sympathy as of plain duty and common honesty.

It is verv necessary, however, that full thought should be oiven not to this general question, which may be regarded as settled out of hand, but to the details of the complex problems it involves. No doubt with the best intentions, Mr Lee proposes to extend to our soldiers when they return certain specific guarantees—in particular a guarantee of employment for not fess than five years at standard wages or at not less than to per week, together with a periodic and automatic, review of military pensions, in consonance with any. increase in the cost of living and improvements in general living standards.

So far as military and other pensions are concerned, there is much to be said for the view that their value and purchasing power should be maintained in a given relationship to ruling rates of cost of living and basic wages. There is no doubt that justice demands that the real value of pensions should be. stabilised. It is definitely a question, however, whether either pensions or wages can be stabilised effectively in any other way than by stabilising costs and prices generally. In the extent to which costs and prices are stabilised, all pensions and all l wages are protected, but the attempt to chase rising, costs and prices with monetary adjustments of wages and pensions is one of the most futile endeavours to which man has yet applied himself. \

Superficially, Mr Lee’s proposal that returning soldiers should be guaranteed at least five years’ employment at approved wages may appear to have much to commend it. There assuredly can be no suggestion that soldiers would thus be offered more than they are entitled to. Before any such proposal can be entitled "to practical consideration, however, an exposition is needed of the manner in which the proposal would be carried into effect with advantage to soldiers. In particular, proof is needed that carrying the proposal into effect would not amount to guaranteeing the soldier five years’ unemployment instead, of employment. It may be hoped that, our soldiers, when they return, will have a good deal to say for themselves about the conditions in which they propose to re-establish. themselves in civil life, and that their ideas will run on decidedly more independent lines than those suggested by Mr Lee.

OBLIGATIONS AND METHODS.

WHILE there are definite obligations to be met, notably in V the matter of military pensions and in that of special training and other opportunities for men who have suffered any kind of disability on account of their military service, the best, guarantee that can in general be given to our returning soldiers is to place the affairs of the Dominion on such a footing as will make for assured and continuing prosperity.

If we are to pursue that aim in a practical spirit and witli the hope of good results, it is essential that we should take firm hold of economic and other realities. In opening the debate on his Soldiers’ Guarantee Bill in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, j\lr Lee said, as he is reported:—

We have to study as never before how the consumption of the output of machines now producing for war is going to become the alternative consumption of society in peace, and how, in the period following the demobilisation of the Army, to keep productive society geared up to its maximum. . . .

This reads very much like the old story of a state of economic plenty in which the only unsolved problem is that of distribution.' So far as New Zealand is concerned, the idea that we have only to pick up plenty to enjoy it is a fable and a delusion. As a national economic entity, we are producing only a part of our own war time requirements. A substantial proportion of the war materia] and equipment used by our fighting forces is being produced in Britain and elsewhere, and much of the cost of this material will remain with us as a debt when the war is over —an addition to a burden of debt which already is somewhat overwhelming. Our national resources are concen--1 rated largely on the production of primary produce and in industry auxiliary to that production. For the time being our export'market is stabilised and safeguarded, but it is more than likely that after the war we shall have to sell ofir staple exports in an impoverished world market. It is in these circumstances very necessary that we should face the realities of our position and prospects.

The policy of hopeful progress for New Zealand, and incidentally that by which we may best and most hopefully prepare for the worthy reception of our soldiers on their return from the war, is that of promoting the greatest and most varied expansion of useful production, of which as a people and with the resources at our command we. are capable. Some of our heaviest handicaps, including that of external and internal, debt, will in effect diminish progressively and rapidly if we succeed in establishing conditions ensuring a continuing expansion of production and population. There is an immense field to be covered in opening the way to this development, but amongst other things a practical approach to the problems of after-war economic adjustment should imply a keen and methodical examination of the possibilities of extending production in ways that will not increase our present dependence on external markets. As to the lines on which we should proceed, we have much to learn from industrial development effected and taking shape at present in Australia. It remains as desirable as ever, too, that, we should give serious attention to the question ol inviting at the right time, the immigration from the disturbed and disorganised European countries of industrial technicians and skilled workers able and willing to apply themselves to the expansion ol industry in a new land. The cardinal point, to be made is that, it is upon problems of actual production, rather than on monetary guarantees and devices that we must concentrate il we are' to solve our national problems happily and to enable our soldiers, when they return, to say with a good heart that they have not fought in vain.