The Dominion TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 1921. HOW TO BE PROSPEROUS

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 228, 21 June 1921, Page 4

The Dominion TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 1921. HOW TO BE PROSPEROUS

Although even in this country the world-wide depression of trade is occasioning some hardship, and in other countries is responsible tor privations in comparison with which anything that has been or is likely to be suffered in New Zealand is relatively insignificant, there is at least one big factor tb be set down on the other side of the account. In times like these men are impelled to think. This being so, the depression which is doing so much to overthrow or limit prosperity is also applying an acid test to ideas bearing on material welfare to which men and women have been wont, very often without thought or with too little thought, to give an easy-going adhesion. It may be hoped that the bad. times the woijd is now experiencing will. make, people everywhere more inclined to use the intelligence with which they are endowed in considering the problems of life, and also in distinguishing between Niose who a”° sincerely intent on rendering useful public service and those who profess a regard for the public interest only as a means of securing an easy livelihood. In this country, as people come to take an alert interest in their own affairs, they will come more and more to recognise that they have themselves mainly to thank for the comparatively narrow margin of prosperity which protects them against th® onset of bad times. Anyone who has even cursorily surveyed the economic life of t.he Dominion is well aware that, at any time during many years past it would have been an easy matter for its people to effect, a ranid and pronounced improvement in their nil ing standards of comfort, and that if they had shown really active enterprise in turning opportunities in this direction to account, the prevailing world degression of and industry would have left Ihoiii comparatively unscathed. r l bes.e truth's are not- in any way hidden. It is onlv necessary to look around to see that the common tendency in lhe economic life of this country is to run in accustomed grooves, and that the improvement of methods

and efficiency in productive enterprise—an improvement which automatically improves the living standards of the whole population—is not only slow in itself, but is actually opposed in many cases by a largo section of the population organised for that and other purposes. The latest example in point is the opposition of the local watersiders to the use of skips in unloading cargoes of coal. If the watersiders have any defined aim in objecting to the use of skips and other forms of labour-saving machinery, it evidently must be to make coal and other commodities as dear as possible. Whatever their aim may be, it is quite clear that they are using their organised strength to the end of lowering their own living standards and those of the rest of the community. Logically they ought to boycott steamers in favour of sailing ships, and ought to insist on loading and unloading cargo on the open foreshore away f.rom such facilities as wharves and cranes and sheds. The foolishness of the watersiders, though remarkable in itself, is in all essentials typical of much that organised Labour has lightly accepted as policy at the bidding of men who have never even troubled to think, seriously about promoting the welfare of the community, and are only intent on serving their own ends by stirring up artificial trouble and strife. In times like those, and wijji such an example of so-called Labour policy as appears in the action of the watersiders set prominently before them, people ought to have little difficulty' in realising the necessity of using their wits and examining on its merits the whole question of promoting material welfare. When this degree of awakening is achieved, the general verdict undoubtedly will be that the total effect of much that has recently passed muster in this country foi* Labour advocacy has been to induce people to neglect an obvious means of steadily improving their comfort and prosperity. We may apply unreservedly to New Zealand the excellent advice that was offered not long ago hv Mr. A. ,T. Balfour when he addressed a meeting in London called to emphasise the claims of industrial research. Industrial research (lie said) was one of the things which most deeply concerned the public, and he confessed that when he saw great industrial disputes going on about the distribution of the results of industry ho could not help thinking, “AVhy do vou not devote half the energy and half the amount of money involved to increasing the power of man over Nature, which would increase the share and increase the total result to he divided among the members of the community, instead of devoting your energies to saying how the. relatively petty amount wo produce is to be divided among the producers?” . . . The hope he had for the world was that, by the growth of science, invention would give comfort and leisure where at present discomfort and labour were the only means of producing an article, and that our people would learn how to use their leisure. Hopes of this kind shine very much brighter in New Zealand than they do in the United Kingdom, and they may be realised in the comparatively near future. The sole condition is that the people of the Dominion, and more especially its wage-earners, should break out of the bondage imposed on too many of them by men whose only aim is to split the community into warring factions.

Apart fioin what science and invention may do as time goes on to increase the output of industry, there is tx big gain to be effected in this country simply by substituting industrial harmony for the prevailing unrest. Devoted to production, the time and money wasted during recent years in industrial upheavals would have served to improve very materially the standards of aomfort actually attained, but to this direct loss there must be added another and perhaps greater loss involved in the check these upheavals have offered to what otherwise might have been a steadily improving development in industrial efficiency. Industrial efficiency is nob a, fetish. It is the standard by which the material Avelfa.ro of every man, woman, and child in the community is measured. Every forward step in industrial efficiency means cither that goods produced locally for local consumntion arc made cheaper and more plentiful, or that on goods produced for export the margin between cost and selling price which is available for the purchase, of goods to be imported and used locally is increased. An improving efficiency in production—to be attained not bv "speeding up” or by imposing unduly arduous conditions of toil, but by giving free plav to the application of modern methods and the adoption of labour-saving machinery—offers here and elsewhere the obvious and only method of ensuring an ever-rising standard of comfort and establishing a, widening margin of security against the. onset of bad times. It is plain enough that for years past Labour extremists have done a great deal to obstruct progress on these lines. At every turn they appear as opponents of Ih" working efficiency in production which would benefit all sections of the population and give the workers the best possible conditions in which to satisfy their legitimate aspirations. The extremists look with hostility even upon such arrangements as have been made i» the case of the Orongorongo tunnelling contract, where the workers concerned have been conceded a high price for their labour, and left free to determine their own working conditions. Mr. Semple, the leader of the co-operative working party, has actually found it, necessary to take the platform to defend himself and his comrades against extremist criticism. The question for the workers of the Dominion to consider is: What have the extremists offered, and what can they offer, in nlace of the easily attainable benefits they arc so anxious to dissipate or withhold?