EMPLOYMENT FOR ALL
Sin,—Doctor Maxwell Gametes letter on " Employment for All " shows an appreciation of some important economic factors, but I think his scheme will be more applicable to post-war America than to post- war Britain. The U.S.A., no matter how long the war goes on, will still be, at the end, a country of vast potential wealth and by no means overpopulated, and she will only need to adopt a sensible financial sys- tem to be in a position to provide her own people with a high standard of living and at the same time make substantial gifts of goods to poorer countries, much as Doctor Maxwell Garnett suggests. Our own position, however, will be different and not so good, and will deteriorate steadily as the war continues. Our islands are smog and, in the economic sense, overpopulated. Our home resources to raw materials, though never properly developed by reason of our rotten financial system, are far more. limited than those of the U.S.A. Our foreign investments are nearly all gone, and so is much of our export trade, which means that we shall find it hard to secure adequate imports, and our position will be even worse if the U.S.A. demands, in goods, payment for some of the supplies she has sent us during the war. This means that we are likely to fmd it none too easy to obtain sufficient raw materials from all sources to provide for the needs of our own people. We shall have little to spare to work up into " prerents " to send to China, excellent as it would be to help China and other needy countries if we were still a • wealthy nation.
Scarcity of raw materials will not, however, make any difference to the labour-destroying effect of modern scientific inventions, and it is most unlikely that we shall be able to emp!oy our whole population, even for the most moderate hours, in turning the limited supply of raw materials into finished goods. We can, however, make sure that, whether people can get paid jobs or not, such supplies of the necessaries of life as are available are fairly divided, everyone receiving enough money to buy his or her full ration at a price fair to the vendor and producer.
—Yours very truly, BEDFORD. Cairnsmore, Newton Stewart, Wigtownshire.
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