Page:The humanizing of commerce and industry, the Joseph Fisher lecture in commerce, delivered in Adelaide, 9th May, 1919.pdf/21

 men travelling in an opposite direction. Naturally there is waste of time, money, and effort. A great housing campaign for Australia would have to be put in the hands of practical men, who should be given authority to lay out the job and to carry on the actual-building regardless of the precedents of previous practice, and with the sole desire to fill the community's want at the earliest possible moment.

Strangely enough we Australians have not shown that we are a practical people, but we are willing to learn. Our young men during the war have shown what they can do. It is time that we gave them a chance here in our own country to show whether they are competent as organizers and carriers-out o such a scheme as has been suggested. Where energy and new methods are required the younger men have got to be given control. Experience in other countries has shown this to be necessary.

I have suggested that it is essential to happiness that each individual should have secured to him health, education, and a good home. To this must be added the provision of decent town conditions with adequate facilities, such as parks and baths, for the enjoyment of his family and himself. I am rather hopeful of the birth of a new sense of civic pride. It seems possible to me that each town community can be so stimulated that it may be induced to organize its forces, its money, and its resources to make for itself any facilities which it needs. That this is practicable has been shown at Port Pirie.

To complete the basis of his happiness a man must also be placed in the position of receiving wages at a rate which will leave him an adequate margin after paying his cost of living. It. is essential that each should have free money to spend on his or her, hobby or pleasure or personal improvement. In earning these wages each must work under decent conditions, in a healthy atmosphere where there is no suspicion of tyranny. Increased money alone would not give these benefits.

A glance at these requirements, which appear essential to the happiness of Australians, shows that no increase of wages or reduction of hours would enable units of the industrial army to secure them. You cannot, as an individual, buy health by receiving an additional shilling a day in wages. Ill health will mar the happiness of any one, no matter what income he has. Hundreds of thousands of men have struck and suffered to get increased wages, and have