SOME LABOUR FALLACIES.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1705, 24 March 1913, Page 5

SOME LABOUR FALLACIES.

Sir,—Your leading article in The ■ Dominion of the titii inst. quotes, with approval a sWenjent that out of every * hundred ,pouiKis' u'ji-lh oi wealth produced in Australasia, roußhly- speaking, 8 por cent, should be eruliU'd to labour, and 92 per cent, to the "various auxiliary aids to industry,"i in other words, to labour-saving machinery. On reading this one is reminded'of the ancient theory that the earth is supported on the back of an elephant, and the elephant is supported by a The theory stops there, and has nothing to say about what holds up the tortoise. In like manner, this wealth-production theory seems to rest at a considerable height above anything like a solid.foundation. It has nothing to say about the labour required to dig the ore, smelt the metal, manufacture and erect this machinery that produces 92 per cent, of the wealth. Allow me to giv.e a short account of the actual, production of some wealth in the South Island:— ' ■ '

Some thirty-odd years ago a bootmaker married the daughter of a publican doing business ill a thirsty locality, and; received the sum -of .£SOO with his bride, lie invested this in the purchase of 500 acres of Crown land at one pound per acre, and immediately sold the standing timber to a sawmiller for,, £200. The axemen were quickly at work in clearing the forest, and in a few years the land was let, and has ever since been held a succession of tenants at a periodically increasing rental, until now, and for some years past, the net rental amounts _to "£SOO a year, all improvements having been made by the several tenants. Thus by a single expenditure of .£3OO the boot-, maker anil his heirs for the next' tliour.n it -r n-.-rlo >• hand' I .thousand v-a's will .be entitled to .£SOO a year derived from the toil of the workers, on what was originally national property. Further, the bootmaker, being under no pressing necessity to spend this income, allowed it to accumulate until he has been able to erect for his business extensive machinery, equipped with the most approved, labour-saving devices. I omitted to mention that the publican when entering on the hotel business had no_ capital, the 6tock and goodwill being paid for by promissory notes, which were duly liquidated through the medium of alcoholic drinks. Every old resident of New Zealand can give similar instances of wealth production. v . Notwithstanding tho dictum of eminent statisticians and learned editors, these terrible Labourites persist in declaring that the wealth of the publican and of the bootmaker, together with payment for the genius and ingenuity of tile designers of . tho machinery, is all derived from the accumulated sixpences of those waterside workers and others wlin had acquired a depraved taste for long beers. —I am, etc., INQUIRER, .