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SMAD. An Organ of Student Opinion. 1936. Volume 7. Number 14.

Nutshell Knowledge — VIII.—Unemployment

Nutshell Knowledge

VIII.—Unemployment.

Unemployment has, of course, been caused by the increased use of machinery and is in no wise a consequence of the want of an economic system. In the Machine Age, unemployment is inevitable. Roosevelt tacitly admits this when he makes his goal a return to 1929 conditions, for the U.S.A. had 8,000,000 unemployed then. Industrialism brings unemployment everywhere except in the U.S.S.R., but there, of course, all men are slaves.

The unemployed are really quite happy, for leisure is one of the greatest of human joys. What good would our civilisation be if nobody had any time to relax and contemplate its wonders? In a well-balanced society if some people were ovverworked, others should be correspondingly underworked.

A wise government, like a wise newspaper, will not needlessly direct attention to mass unemployment. A wise government with a constructive programme will bring down legislation substituting wherever possible the word "employment" for the word "unemployment." Thus Unemployment Bureaus become Employment Bureaus. A well-known source of revenue has been appropriately renamed the Emergency Employment Tax because it is levied on money not earned in any employment. I expect the unemployed are gratefull to the Labour Govenment for re-naming the tax on unearned income.

War is not a good thing, but every cloud has a silver lining. War aborbs the unemployed. Life once mnore has a meaning for them. They take easily to the barracks life, especially if they are accustomed to the kindly regimentation of Hitler's Labour Camps or Bromley's Relief Camps. Perhaps Britain's reluctant decision to re-condition her armed forces will lead to a sudden solution to our unemployment problem. Since the last war, the British taxpayer has contributed only £350,000 a day towards Britain's splendid gesture of unilateral disarmament.

—Spectator.