WELLINGTON NEWS

Hokitika Guardian, 22 December 1930, Page 6

WELLINGTON NEWS

MARKETS AND PRICES

(Special Correspondent).

WELLINGTON, Dec. IS.

With the eloping of the .Stock Exchanges ol - the Uoim’nion oil Tuesday business tor the year 1930 may be said to have ended, not alone for stocks and shares but also for alt commodities that are dealt in wholesale. The retailers of course looking for the usual harvest kno.wn as the Christmas trade. The Stock Exchanges in practically all countries have suffered a set-back, but that does not mean that sharebrokers have done badly. Investors and speculators in Australia lost considerably through depreciation in share values, and in a review of investment operations lor 1930 on the Melbourne Shook Exchange an independent investigator has computed the loss in value, of a group ot 67 representative financial industrial and mining stocks at £42,000,009. This of course does not represent the full value of the loss, for, there arc many hundreds of companies ju. Australia and New Zealand that have .not been included in the computation, and the loss suffered by these, may bo placed at £10,000,000 which should be an under-estimate. This brings the total share loss in 1930 to £52,000,000. The population of Australia is roughly 6,500,000, and of New. .Zealand approximately 1,500,000, making a total of 8,000,000, and the loss incurred by tile deprbCiatToh iff shape values in 1930, amounts to £6 10s per head for every man. woman and cm Id in the Commonwealth and the dominion.

This is only one market and it would be interesting if it were possible to estimate the losses in other markets. For instance there is th,e..real estate market. Land values Have declined very heavily, both, country and city properties being affected. It would be hard to assess the value of farm land on a business basis. fter paying copts of working and rates arid taxes an unencumbered property would show very .little profit, while, a mortgaged farm could, not possibly show any profit. Then '.there, are the commodity markets , such as the viol market,' the meat market, the "hiat market, the butter market, the hemp market, the tallow market, the sugar market, the copra market, Uk\ niboer market, the cotton market, the metal market and a . variety of other markets.

Most of the commodities dealt in on. the markets named are at. or, below pre-war level. anomaly is presented by the Labour market, at least in New Zealand. While securities apcl commodities have 1 alien in value tb° cost of iabopr is being held up bv legislation, that is it is being held f.p by artificial, means. We have -refused to permit natural economic laws to apply to the labour market, and we are wondering how this violent I .reach of economic laws is going to work out. Unemployment is, one penalty . that has. to ,ibo paid, dullness fin trade contraction of imports, decline, ip Customs revenue, shrinkage in national revenue, tightening of money rates, foreclosure by mortgagees and ipr creased taxation are some of the effects for disregarding the buy. of economics which are rigid and stern. Here we see that mam-made law can not set aside natural law, and as soon as, that is realised and acknowledge with respect to the labour market the sooner will the price of labour be adjusted to the pri.cbs of commodities. The majority of the people know what is wanted and the' majority is quite willing to join .in and Help with the readjustment, but there must be a lead and that is where we are at fault. AVe have been in the habit of looking to the Government for everything that is excusable that people should now look to the authorities to take the initiative.

It may be said that in striking a Levy and setting up the Unemployment Board the Government has done something tangible to deal with unemployment, and so it has, but it has taken the wrong course. The initial blunder was in assuming that unemployment is a social problem. The unemployed who are mentally l dcfictpn, the incapacitated and such others cpmie within the ca egory of the social problem, but the unemployment that arises from other causes constitutes an economic and not a social oroblem. And the Board had proceeded to administer in the belief that it was dealing with a social problem, with the result tlnft unemployment has actually increased since the Board began to function. Had the Board dealt with the problem as an economic one it would never have made the wage so attractive. A wage of 14s per day is practically a standard wage and not a relief wage. The wage is attractive enough to cause men earning less and worth less to throw up their jobs, voluntarily join the unemployed and so secure the standard wage. Prices in tlje labour niarket must conform with prices in other markets and that adjustment must bo made.