Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star WEDNESDAY, MAY 26th, 1920. WORK AND WAGES.

Hokitika Guardian, 26 May 1920, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star WEDNESDAY, MAY 26th, 1920. WORK AND WAGES.

it is a pleasure to hear from Mr Mas■icv, says the Mercantile Gazette, that a lien butter has a free market the price inii not be inordinately increased to the consumer, flow that result is to be attained we are tor the present left in the dark, as the retail price for that essential of life in London is just about twice what it il here, if freight is available, and it is dfhcult to understand how the retail prices in New Zealand are to be kept a shilling or so below the corresponding values in London. 'f he finer classes of wools and the | pi'ice of New Zealand mutton are both on the downward grade at Home, and no one could consider it a calamity if the English prices were to gradually fall, but apart from the fall caused by want of tonnage and local congestion prices will not get lower to any great extent while the present mania for lesser working hours prevails, or until the incidence is changed to payment by result-. From every side statistics record that higher wages have not increased, but diminished outputs in all cases where payment is by the day. At Home the dockers’ wages have been raised from six to eleven shillings per day, with disastrous results, so far as output is concerned, nor is there any possibility of any better results being obtained if the men should succeed in forcing the further increase to sixteen 'shillings, which they are now demanding. Experience show's there is more absence from work as tlieir pay increases, and naturally as the cost of moving cargo, in or out, rises, so must the goods which are handled bear the cost to the detriment of the ultimate consumer. Every economist in all countries points out that if the inhabitants of the world want to bring prices down, the remedy is in their own bands—produce more. Unfortunately the general opinion is that by retarding production the present standard of wages is maintained, and that it is better to have high pay, even if commodities remain at present or even enhanced prices. The fallacy underlying that argument is that prices must continue mounting, no stability can be reached, and that as production decreases trade will get away to those who are willing to work, and that England, instead of | being able to grasp the opportunity, which is now' within her reach, to sell to the countries whose restituton she is anxious to assist, will have to retire in favour of America and Japan who have the benefit of a more favourable exchange. Nothing can be worse for our own Empire than the industrial suicide which the policy of the union leaders wish to bring about, and the words of tlx'. New South Wales Premier, that unless some change is made there are black days ahead, come with striking ’significance at the moment when the men of Australia are advocating shorter hours of work and increased pay