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Hokitika Guardian, 23 July 1923, Page 2

•‘When can a wage be considered adequate ? How much of a living is reasonably to be expected from work? Have you ever considered what n. wage does or ought to do? To say that it should pay the cost of living is to say almost nothing. The cost- of living depends largely upon the efficiency of production and transportation; and the efficiency of these is the sum of the efficiencies of tho management and the workers. Good work, well managed, ought to result in high wages and low living costs. If we attempt to regulate wages oil living costs, we get nowhere. The cost of living is a result and wo cannot expect to keep a. result constant if we keep altering the factors which produce tho result. When we tiy to regulate wages according to the cost of living, we are imitating n dog chasing hi-; tail. And, anyhow, who is competent to say just what kind of living wo shall base tlie costs on? I/ot us broaden our view and see what a. wage is to the workmen—and what it ought- to bo.”—ln the above strain Mr Henry Ford, of motor car fame, discusses the- almost threadbare subject of the cost of living, and tkc regulation of wages accordingly. The well-known American puts the subject. forward in quite a charaeteiistie way, and the obvious answers to the questions he propounds no doubt settle the point from his idea, of tho general issue. There is, nevertheless, a, good deal of practical sense in the wav he [nits forward hi.s views. The trouble in this country is that wages are being based on the cost, of living, determined hv an airay of factors, and having entered into a nice mathematical problem, New Zealand is actually imitating a dog chasing its tail in tho effort to !ivo up to a false condition of affairs. Really, on the lines of Mr Ford’s reasoning it might be considered something of a fool’s paradise, for though wages are regulated mathematically, the result never gives satisfaction to tithei employer or employee.

Tue prospect of cheaper freights for coal and timber being railed from tho Coast to Canterbury is quite in keeping with general expectations. With a siuirter distance, and less handling, it would follow that the staple products of the Coast- must he lsirne to the East Coast under greatly improved conditions. This conclusion applied not only to freight charges, but also in respect to the condition in which the commodities reached their destination. Shipping by sea necessitated so much handling that loss resulted, while costs mounted up. Coal deteriorated, and timber wn-s damaged, and in both instances there was a decrease in quality as well as quantity. The money saving by railway freight will not lie the only gain. The consumer will get a better quality, and tho settler will he paid for the quantity lie. forwarded from hi.s mine or his mill. The community value will bo enhanced, and on top of that there is the fact that- the trans|K>rt will he performed by the State-owned railway, again adding to tho community value. For all East Coast traffic into North Canterbury, and even beyond the confines of South Canterbury, the railway should compete successfully with the shipping competition, with marked economic advantage to the people a.s a whole. Hole then is tho lirst tangible benefit to bo derived from the opening of the long waited for railway.