POST-WAR ECONOMY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 April 1943, Page 4

POST-WAR ECONOMY

PROBLEMS IN U.S.A.

& CANADA

business men urged TO TAKE LEAD.

IN EXPANDING PRODUCTION

& EMPLOYMENT

Next to Hie spiritual condition of the nation the full employment of its people is of primary importance, (Mr Roger Babson wrote recently in the “Christian Science Monitor"). Under normal conditions about 45,000,000 aic gainfully employed in the United Slates Today this has gone up to about 55,000,000, while during the depths of the depression of the 1930's there were only 35,000,000 so employed, will) 10,000,000 unemployed walking the streets, Of these, probably 2.500,000 were unemployable. 1 ;. Without doubt the United Slates and Canada will be faced with a big unemployment problem after World War 11. Not only will 10,000,000 men be returning from the army. navy, and air forces to their homes, but another 10,000,000 or more now working in war plants, shipyards, etc., temporarily al least will be thrown out of work. To the average statistician the situation looks dark and unsolvablc. Yet, there is no reason for getting panicky.

TEST FOR CAPITALISM. To begin with there will be a tremendous “consumer demand” after the war. People will stampede for new automobiles, new refrigerators, new radios, and new appliances of all kinds, from kitchen utensils to farm implements. Moreover, the people will have the money and bonds to pay for these things. Merchants will again stock up with goods, which means that manufacturers must quickly “convert” and re-employ millions of people. During the years directly following peace, employers should forget themselves in order to save themselves. Many millions will be tired and sick of rationing, price-fixing, and government inefficiency. The business men will then have a real chance to throw off the “ball and chain” which the New Deal has put upon them. To do this, however, we employers must assume more responsibility and must make a greater effort to give employment than we ever have in the past. Unless business men do then wake up and assume leadership, the free-en-terprise system may get a severe beating. These returning soldiers will be in no mood to see factories needlessly shut down. PREVENTING UNEMPLOYMENT No new committees need be formed nor new reports need be issued. The files of the Department of Labour contain voluminous studies on how unemployment can be reduced during a depression. These plans range from raising the school age and getting women back into the homes, to the quota System in which I was so much interested ten years ago. We will not need new plans for work, but rather we will need merely to work the plans we have.

Here at Washington I have heard of plans to turn some of the great government buildings, now full of clerks, into a mammoth National University for returning soldiers. These plans also include having branches of this great University in different sections of the country using empty munition plants for school rooms and laboratories; while the students can live in the new houses now occupied by war workers. It is estimated that this new national University may have an enrolment of 1,000,000 students! WHAT ABOUT IVY COLLEGE? Of course, 'such a plan will be fought bitterly both by the old line endowed colleges like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc., and also by the State Universities which have great political influence. On the other hand, the thousands of college professors now working for the government are behind the plan. My own guess is that the decision will be made, not by those who have desk jobs of any kind, but by those who are now risking their lives for us in the four quarters of the globe. Certainly, after World War 11, college education will be revolutionised. Its cost will be greatly reduced; its “high hat” attitude will be crushed; and the courses will be too much “more practical.” Personally I am rather sorry about the latter.

A cultural education is like the foundation of a house. A family which is building a home should not spend all its money on the foundation; but it certainly should not build without a foundation and this should be a good foundation. With the surplus of empty buildings and idle machine tools after World War 11, there, however, will be a great temptation to use many of them for teaching trades, vocations and socalled practical subjects.