THE COST OF LIVING AND PROFITMAKING.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2433, 12 April 1915, Page 7

THE COST OF LIVING AND PROFITMAKING.

Sir,—As a wage-earnor and a reader of your paper, 1 must say I'm rather tired of reading the letters which appear from time to time in your correspondence columns, written by well-off farmers and squatters expostulating with people who, Jiko myself, are fcelmg the pinch of the high cost of living, and say so. Mr. Birch, of Marton, is the latest to take up the pen and recommend the Christian virtue of patience as the only attitude befitting us at this time. Of course patience on our part is just what these men want, when we begin to got impatient and. become active, things will happen to make their conception of "natural" economic laws look very silly. The economic gods which Mr. Biroh professes to worship helongr to the limbo of the past, and if it existed in Mr. Birch's conceptions of things, it was surely knocked off its porch when, the Government, at the request of the Imperial Government, fixed the price of meat. Why does Mr. Biroh not condemn the Government for thus defying the laws of his joss, as according to him the farmers will be raising less meat next year, and the consumers will suffer accordingly from dear meat? Mr. Birch, however, makes an interesting reference to the Amalgamated Society of .Engineers, whom ne exonerates from any charge of greediness in wanting all the wages they can get. His inference suggests a comparison. If the A.S.R.S. in the Old Country at the present time demanded (kiublo rates for their labour, and were determined not to sell their labour for less,' I have no doubt they would get it, but all the patriotic squatters would condemn them for unpatriotic greed in a time of national stress. Nevertheless any argument Mr. Birch advances to defend the wheat exploiters could be advanced with equal force on behalf of the engineers. The engineers have not done so, neither have the workers here taken, advantage of the depletion of the labour market, caused by tho other patriotic workers having gone to the i'rent, to 'hold up the country for higher prices. If they did, what a howl we would have from the wealthy worshippers of the supply and demand joss. However, the workers, according to Mr. Birch, must just be patient. The wheat exploiters cannot help themselves —they are merely the puppets of the "immutable" Jaw. (Oh happy souls who only stand and wait). Thank heaven Mr. Birch stopped 6hort of asking us to admire their patriotism. That "would" have been tho last straw.— 1 am, eto., - R. B. HENDERSON. Levin.