Mr. Lyttelton Looks Forward
Mr. Oliver Lyttelton's broadcast last Sunday should do something to dispel the gloom of those who insist on taking a sombre view of our economic and social prospects after the war. He refused to admit that a great wave of unemployment after the ending of hostilities is inevitable, though he recognised that to avert it appro- priate measures would have to be taken. The experience of 1919 shows us that in the early stages there will be a great demand for the goods with which the public is under-supplied in war-time ; and then, as he says, the problem will not be one of unemployment, but of the transfer of labour and the re-adaptation of industry. But he is surely over-sanguine when he suggests that that period will last four or five years. The major measures which he thinks will be necessary for finding a permanent balance in our economic life ought to be set going, probably, within a year or two of the end of the war, and not later—this, surely, being one of the more potent arguments for preparing reconstruction schemes now. But he recognises that at the right moment the State will have to step in and take the responsibility for modernising the nation's capital equipment—the transport, roads, ports, towns, houses and—last, but not least—the amenities of the country. To employ labour on schemes of this kind is a very different thing from providing relief work for the unemployed. It is to use the credit of the State to improve the country's capital equipment, to create assets on which dividends will be earned. Our future trade will gain by more modern means of transport ; industry will benefit from economical means of mining coal and distributing power ; the real standard of living of the workers will be enhanced by better houses and more amenities.
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