The Hokitika Guardian MONDAY, APRIL 3rd, 1922. THEORY AND WAGE FIXING.

Hokitika Guardian, 3 April 1922, Page 2

The Hokitika Guardian MONDAY, APRIL 3rd, 1922. THEORY AND WAGE FIXING.

The Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor in a statement recently given out has declared against the practice of fixing wages with relation to the “cost of living” ‘•‘The American trade union movement,” said the declaration, believes that the lives of the working people should be made better with each passing day and year. The practice of fixing wages solely on a fiasis of the cost of living is a violation of sound economy and is uterly without logic or scientific support of any kind.” The practice referred; to developed during the war when great confusion existed in wages and prices and there seemed to be no better way of temporarily adjusting waegs than by reference to tb e changes in the cost of the principal necessaries. Claims for wage advances were usually based on the advancing cost of living, and the valiJity of the argument was accepted. It is true that th € practice is _ unscientific and unsound, for the theory upon which it is based runs jin a cirje, the cost of living being itself determined mainly by wages. It should bo added that all arbitrary or purely theoretical standards of wages and of living conditions are unscientific and unsound, except as they may 1.2 offered as ideals to be striven for. It is useless to set up an ideal standard of living in Russia at this time; if the food has not been produced it is not to be had, and living conditions) everywhere depend at last, upon the volume of production. The tables compiled show the aggregate income of the people of the United States, which it may be observed is somewhnt in excess of the aggregate production pf wealth, as a good many incomes in-. ]

eluded are for services which figure as production in a negative way—such us most government services. It is irnjossible to divide aiiv more than all there is; there is a definite limit and the total is not ample. The lives of the working people will be made better 1 if production is increased, not otherwise. It is important to put the emphasis in the right place. Endless gains are posable by that means, but few may be expected bv fighting over the three-tenths or one-quarter that now goes to management and capital. Harmonious industry will increase them, but group warfare will diminish them-.