34
OUR INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS.
By “Jack Straw” (C. W. WALTERS, Stone-street, Bayswater.)
The Australian social system, like that
of other countries, has not been deliberate-
ly designed to do the work expected of it.
It is a machine which was inherited and
has Deen patched and altered and adapted
to serve in a more or less effective way
the economic needs of the people who live
ander it. If it works badly in one direction,
a new patch is put on or an alteration of
some sort is made, aud even if the defect
in question is removed—ivhich is not always
the case—the very remedy itself is liable
to make trouble in some other part of the
mechanism. If, therefore, we choose to con-
tinue the use of such an implement, we
must expect, and be ready to put up with
the inconveniences of industrial unrest,
amemployment and curtailed production. If
we object to these things we must by hard
thought and hard work produce a better
nachine. There is no royal road to induy-
rial stability.
No doubt but few members of the work-
ng class have seriously attempted to ana-
lyse the root causes of their troubles, but
they see around them the results and
understand something of the potentiali-
ties of modern science and invention in
providing a living for humanity, Yet they
are still dogged by the same old disabili
ties, The average working man labours
hard al] his. life, (those who have spent
the strength of their years in bard manual
toil know the value ‘of the cheap jibes
about slacking and “wo slow”) but he finds
himself little better off than his predeces-
sors, excepting for the cold comfort that
ne can look forward ‘to an old-nge pension
when the time comes that he can .do no
more. He 4s told by budding economists
and reactionary. politicians that if he
would only produce more there would be
more to distribute but he has some inkting
of thes fact that the statement has a eatch
in ft
And the catel lies in the wastefuluess of
The Competitive System.
So paradoxical and vicious is its constitu-
tion that there needs must be an appalling
amount of waste merely in order to make
it work at all. If there Lave been no cala-
mities, no wars or earthquakes or fives or
famines, goods of all sorts accumulate, the
market is glutted and unemployment and
poverty increase, not because of scarcity
but because of plenty. Such a vesult should
be suflicient to condemn the system, but
it is, by its supporters, regarded as bemg
in accordance with the fithess of things.
One of the most striking instances of this
is to be found in the usual attitude to-
wards the seasonal recirrence-of the esti-
mates for the forthcoming wheat crops in
various countries, If the weathe. has been
unpropitious, and there is likely to be a
shortage in Argentina, Canada, the U.S A.
or elsewhere our farmers are supposed to
have, (in fact they really Lave), cause to
rejoice. If the season bas heen good, and
Nature has showered her benefits on the
world, then there is likely to bo depression
ind misery.
And the details of the working of the
system ave of a piece with its genéral prin.
ciples. The energy and substance of the
community is wasted by, (I) the over-
lapping of trades which are in themselves
useful, and the cousequent creation of
much unnecessary labour in the rivalries
of competing firms; (2) by unemployment
among the poor and idleness among the
rich; (3) by oceupations whicl, merely serve
the pleasures aud amusements of the idle
rich, and (4) by large numbers of ununeeces-
sary middlemen, the great horde of hang-
ers-on and parasites. the gambling frater-
nity and the rest wha make a living with-
out- ever doing anything to. increase the
production of usefnl wticles, Every one
of those necessarily lielps to reduce the
standard of living to a point far below
what it should be. Yot self-sufiicient per-
gons, belonging. to one or other of these
categories arc quick enough fo point out
to the worker his defect
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