Sir Ganga Ram on unemployment

BY a strange accident, the publication of the matriculation results for the current year virtually coincides with the strong and earnest plea put forward by Sir Ganga Ram in his evidence before the Economic Enquiry Committee for immediate attention to be paid to the question of unemployment among the educated youth of the province. “There were twenty thousand students who came out of Punjab University last year,” he said. “There was unemployment among these, not among the labourers whose condition was far better.” We do not think Sir Ganga Ram meant to suggest that the condition of the labourers themselves was all that it should be. What he did say was that whatever the condition of this particular class, the condition of a very large number of people who belong to what is usually called the educated middle class was far worse. In making this statement, Sir Ganga Ram was undoubtedly on firm ground. There can be no question that while the wages of many, if not most, classes of labourers have been going up, the wages of the average matriculate or graduate, even when he does find employment, show a distinctly downward tendency. The reason is obvious. The supply in one case is far more in excess of the demand than in the other. It was to this fact that he made a pointed reference. He said: “Don’t create university men more than you need. Of course, I don’t want you to shut up your schools and colleges, but where is the need for increasing your arts colleges when more technical schools are wanted?”

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