Efficiency of Labour.

Labour, it is often said, is the basis of wealth; it is the foundation on which prosperity must be built, but without saving and thrift there can be not stable prosperity. To make labour efficient, three things are needed; a higher physical life, a higher intellectual life, and a higher social or ethical life. Let us briefly examine these three needs. A sick person, we all admit, cannot be an efficient worker. We must therefore regard public health, as our highest concern. Have we considered the many things required to obtain and maintain public health? A few may be enumerated. We need clean cities and clean dwellings, sunlight and pure air. These cannot be obtained if we have narrow streets and no open spaces and no gardens, and if we tolerate slums and crowded tenemente. Wide streets are sunlight. The height of buildings should be limited. It is true, so far as Wellington is concerned, that we have a great advantage. We have a huge reserve seven miles wide in our harbour which cannot be built upon, and our southerlies bring health-giving ozone from the Southern Ocean. But those who laid out our city had not the ideas we have now about garden cities, with wide streets and beauty spots. Our cities and dwellings, too, must be kept narrow streets must be widened and in- page 9 sanitary dwellings demolished. No one class or party can be blamed for our present conditions. The blame rests on the community as a whole.

It is a pity, however, that forty years ago we were not alert, enough, and had not vision enough to lay the foundations of our city on broader lines. May I add a personal note? It is over 44 years ago since I pointed out to the Wellington people the need of wider streets, and how they might be secured. We must have more and better dwelling houses, and greater amenities for our people. Much has been done in this respect since I first knew Wellington, now about 45 years ago, but much has yet to be done. In tact no one who saw Wellington 45 years ago could have imagined that so many improvements would have been made in this time. We must march forward, considering what will tend to make our people physically strong.