Page:The humanizing of commerce and industry, the Joseph Fisher lecture in commerce, delivered in Adelaide, 9th May, 1919.pdf/22

 succeeded, only to find that in a few weeks the increased cost of living has taken from them their increased wages. A man living with his family in a hovel, or a crowded tenement, cannot get a decent house for them even if his wages are increased, unless somebody else has built a house and is willing to rent it to him. No individual by getting a rise in wages can improve the conditions of his town, nor remedy his defective education, and if I have correctly stated the basic conditions for material happiness, it is not difficult to understand that every advantage gained by trades unionism is doomed to failure, and the results of every successful strike turn to Dead Sea fruit. No Bonder then that the world is filled with great unrest. A large number of people are disgusted with their failure to achieve happiness. See the true perspective of our present conditions in the light of this Gospel of Happiness, and is it any wonder that Australia to-day resounds with alarming discontent and unhappiness? We were only playing with industrial conditions when we legislated to provide a minimum wage, hours, and conditions. For instance, to fix wages without controlling the cost of living is love's labour lost. Cost of living can travel faster than increase of wages. Good conditions for a man during the eight hours he works, in the absence of the basic conditions just outlined for the other sixteen hours of each day, only barb his discontent.

If we attempt to re-organize our community so as to secure to each the basic conditions of happiness, we have to face the problem of unemployment. I do not think the community can evade its obligation to grant the right to work to all willing to do so, nor can it evade the obligation to find that work. I go further, and believe if the community fails to find work for one of its units it should pay him or her some form of sustenance. This latter principle has been introduced into Australia in connection with our returned soldiers, and in Great Britain in connection with displaced munition workers. A statement was recently made that one million munition workers were receiving sustenance at the rate of twenty-five shillings a week owing to munition work having ceased. We in Australia have felt it a duty to returned soldiers to adopt a similar practice. When our soldiers come home,, the duty rests on us of being able to re-establish them in civil life. The Federal Government has already put into operation the practice of paying liberal sustenance if it is unable to find work for the