The Dominion. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1920. AN EMPHATIC WARNING
■Apart.from its immediate interest, the judgment of the Arbitration Court on the latest cost-oi-living'bonus application ought to serve a useful purpose in steadying public opinion and directing attention to the issues really involved in wage adjustments. So far as the Bonus is concerned, _ the Court has arrived at a decision which many people will regard as reasonable, though there is no doubt that it would have been better - 111 the end for all concerned—workers and the community generally, as well as employers —if a final and dcnnito break had been made lat this stage in the futile process of pursuing price-increases with wage-increases which serve only to send prices higher. The Court instead has ad* justed the cost-of-living bonus as nearly as possible on the basis »t appvoved early in 1919—the basis of the average increase in the.cost of living during each period of six months. It was fully explained during the hearing that this basis was departed from as the result of a misunderstanding between the Court and the Government Statistician's Office, and that in this way bonuses were granted in excess of the-actual.,increase in the cost of living. An additional payment 01 five shillings a week would have brought the total bonus into conformity with the cost-of-living figures, but the Court had also to consider that workers in receipt of the bonus were overpaid to the extent of two shillings a week during the first ten months of this year. An additional payment of three, instead of five, shillings has therefore been awarded for the period of six months from Novetnber 1. The main interest of the judgment is in the grave doubts expressed by Mb. Justice Stringer as to whether he is justified in granting any further increase in wages at the present time. The facts he details and others make it particularly clear that these doubts are well grounded. and that the Dominion if anything lias passed the limits of safety in attempting to overtake rising prices by raising the wages of_ a section of the working population. Labour advocates who supported the bonus claim professed 1 to be cheerfully confident that the industries of the Dominion were wellable to bear any additional wages burden that might be imposed, but to look abroad over the world is to realise that this careless optimism has rio real reference to the facts of the case. As the Court points out in its judgment, high working costs and a declining demand for commodities have enforced substantial reductions in wages in some important industries in-Britain and America, and even so unemployment has developed on o, serious scale. Nor is it only in the great industrial countries that this state of affairs has arisen. Unemployment is extending also in sonic, of the Australian States, notably in New South Wales, where the cost of living "is not 'materially different from that in New Zealand," and the minimum wage for unskilled workers (adjusted as recently as last October) is lower by six shillings a week than the rate now fixed_ in New Zealand. Within the Dominion itself there arc already., plain indications thai further persistence in the policy of hoisting money wages'will lead inevitably to the same results_ as have appeared in other countries—industrial depression and unemployment.
There need be the'less hesitation in emphasising these facts since it is not for a moment suggested that the organised workers should desist in any real sense from the attempt to better their conditions. All that they arc asked to do is to abandon the pursuit of an illusion in order to take hold of tangible realities. Even in the war and after-war period when scavcity and short production made a steep rise in priccs inevitable, tho attempt to balanco the cost of living by increasing money .wages was of necessity abortive. To persist in the same policy now that world-prices are exhibiting a downward tendency is to invite disaster, and at the same tima lo reject the relief that may easily be pained by wiser methods. Here, in other countries, a gradual fall in prices offers the best a,nd safest return to normal conditions and progress on these lines is impossible while money wages are periodically increased in accordance with fluctuations in the cost of living. There is no question of paying special regard to the interests of employers of labour. Tho interests of the whole population, and more particularly those of wage-earners and their dependants, demand that
p'riccs should bo allowed to decline to a level which will ensure unrestricted demand and give free scopu to productive enterprise. A full remedy lor the troubles now looining would readily be found if Labour concentrated on securing a steady increase in real wages in the only way possible—by assisting to increase and cheapen the output of industry from which all wages aro drawn. 'The moral effect of the Arbitration Court's latest pronounoomcnt ought to be considerable. TJhe general and almost universal tendency in this country in recent times has been to regard the extension _of the vicious circlc with n considerable amount of indifference, In face of the emphatic and authoritative warning the Court has now offered it may be expectcd that this indiffercnco will be considerably shaken. The observations the Court has appended to its judgment are impressive not only as an exposure of the shortcomings of the bonus system, but as demonstrating the absolute necessity of seizing upon the better and more rational methods that are available of putting the industries of the Dominion on a stable and prosperous footing. The first and most essential step in this direction is to induce organised workers and other sections of the population to give serious thought to the really vital aspects of the wages problem, and the Court's pronouncement seems well calculated to' achieve this result.
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Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 68, 14 December 1920, Page 6
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979The Dominion. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1920. AN EMPHATIC WARNING Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 68, 14 December 1920, Page 6
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