Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16th, 1920. A DAY’S WORK.

Hokitika Guardian, 16 June 1920, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16th, 1920. A DAY’S WORK.

There jure some indispensable things comments ••‘Ways and Means,” a, London publication, for the Jack of which men die. The most important of these is air. A man cannot live without air for more than a few minutes, and this, the cheapest of his necessities, costs him nothing. To keep himself in healtli he also needs food three times every twenty-four hours. There have been, it is true, cases of abnormal human beings who have lasted for twenty or thirty days, but keep the average person without nourishment for seven days and he will not survive the privation. Rood, unlike air, is not free'. It is only obtainable at a certain cost, and the cost is, in the fast resort, measured in terms of labour. Ultimately it rests with the individual therefore, whether he shall bfj well nourished or go hungry. While the connection with the specialised daily task in a complex civilisation and the gathering of growing of food is not obvious, it is nevertheless, very real. Wheat cannot be grown and turned into bread .without work. 'Hie soil 'must be ploughed, harrowed and rolled after that the crop has to be cut, stacked, threshed winnowed and then ground, the whole involving an immensity of human toil. The cost of living in this sense is measured by the labour of hundreds of thousands of workers ‘n every wheat growing country who win their living from the soil. We have also the flockmasters of Australia, tho ranchmen of South America, fishermen in every sea, tea. planters of India and fruitgrowers of California, and a hun-, died others, all of .thejn giving long days of arduous toil—toil ,which is the real cost of living. All \this, elementary as it is, can lie. reduced to yet simple terms. A castaway on an island qiiickly discovers that lie can - get a living only by the. daily expenditure of personal energy in obtaining fresh water, eggs, borries, fruits, fish; fresh and fuel to supply his needs. That :s

what wo are all doing by proxy. It is true that living in large towns and cities we know'very little aliout food except that it is to be found in certain shops in certain roads and that it costs so much per pint or per pound. AVhether man i.s a hairdresser, a cabinet maker, a compositor,' or a barrister, lie s i really making an exchange ol the kind of work he does for the work done by ploughmen, carters, dairymen and shepherds. , . . At the present time the cost of living is held by a very large section of the community to be a right and propel reason for demanding increased wages. Let is see how this would work out in the case of the castaway.. He finds that for some reason-.food, water and fuel arc becoming scarce. There s none from whom lie can demand an mcDense of wages. Wages, except in kind, are of no service to him whatever. The'only possible way in which he can relieve the scarcity is to, extend ' the number of l.ours during which ho searches for the means of sustenance. He sees at first hand bow useless it is to make demands except upon bis own personal exertions. Suppose, further, the castaway to be suffering from i form of madness which led him to suppose that if he worked in the mornings only and not in the afternoons he would in some mysterious way get a greater rather than a lesser amount of supplies and wo have a pretty accurate picture of, what is really happening fn the world to-day. The time may arrivi when it. is possible ’for the race to obtain the tilings necessary to its life without arduous work, but that time is not yet. In the most popular of English "popular songs a village blacksmith rejoices in the fact that “each morning sees some task begun, each evening sees its close.” At present there is a disposition to hope that the day’s job will last not' only the day but may be made to do duty for to-morrow and the day after. Folk who think that way are simply fooling themselves. We have endeavoured to show how, in the last record, the kind of livelihood a. man wins depends on the energy which ho is prepared to put. in his day’s work. It seems trivial to insist upon it but we have written thus on learning of the important new rule with regard lO the granting of advances in wages which has been laid down by the British Industrial Court which lias recently been considering the applications of the trade- unions connected with the engineering trades for an increase of wages. In giving its decision the Court lays it down that while, during the exceptional circumstances of war, it was proper to take' into account, the cost of living as the principal determinant of wage, the remuneration of the workpeople should depend nil the value of the work done, and that the value of the work clone depends on the state of the market.