LONG VIEW URGED

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 145, 15 March 1939, Page 11

LONG VIEW URGED

Standard 01’ Living And Free Spending COMMERCIAL ATTITU DE “I am inclined to wonder whether lliis standard of living business is not being a little overdone. I am familiar with the argument that free spending is good for trade, lint there is n longer view than that,” said the president of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce. Mr. I'. E. I'attrick. in bis address at the annual meeting of the chamber Inst night. “Of course we want to see the people receiving high purchasing power." said Mr. Batt rick; "bin do we not have to be careful also that the branches of the tree are not forced into a growth which is beyond the capacity of the roots to provide continued sustenance for? How much of I he greatly increased rates that are being paid for the services of labour is being saved to provide new capital resources for new productive enterprise, and for future security for the Individual in the community?

"If I saw half as much evidence of thrift as 1 see evidence of a desire to go on increasing the rates of remuneru tion paid to labour and the taxes raised from productive enterprises. I would feel that we were making a much better job than I think we are in building up a higher standard of living that will Inst. “I think there is a grave danger of demoralization in the high rates of pay that young jteople are "being given, because it has the flavour to them of being easy, money, and what is a case of ‘easy come' is generally a case of 'easy go,'" Mr. Battrick said. "The question is not only one of morals: it Is also one of economics. Standards of remuneration are at once threatened if. instead of storing our water, the dam which comprises the resources which are built up of savings out of earnings is allowed to run dry.

“1 know that my remarks about these social questions will not be pleasurably received by some people, but 1 am trying to be not an obstructionist but a fundamentalist. Let us build up all we can in the provision of higher standards and extended social services, but these tilings must be governed by what we can afford out of our total resources after, and not before, first essentials have been adequately provided for.”