NEW ZEALAND’S WAY

Hokitika Guardian, 5 August 1931, Page 5

NEW ZEALAND’S WAY

MEETING DIFFICULTY

ATTACK BY SYDNEY LABOUR DAILY. SYDNEY. July 23. . During the present period of financial distress. most Australians have looked longingly across the Tasman, certain that conditions there were bettor than they were here. Travellers have on many occasions emphasised a belief that New Zealand was meeting the conditions created by the world depression in the correct way, and almost without exception they have held up the Dominion as ail example to the Commonwealth. Australians, realising New Zealand’s fortune, have expressed a desire for a Government that could afford to ignore Labour extremists or the type which has led New South Wales to the very brink of disaster. Only now. twelve or even eighteen months too late, is Australia adopting a policy which approaches that of New Zealand. Tile Lang plan, , involving dishonesty of the lowest type. Has definitely failed. Air Lang and his followers arfe beaten, and this week there lias been tile spectacle of Mr Laiig oh iiis bended knteea before his former enemies. Rerliaps these facts have inspired an amusing attack by the official ofgall of the Lang thirty, “The Labour Daily” on conditions generally in New Zealand.

The paper seems to have gone out of its way to belittle New Zealand in order to show the disaster which has followed acceptance of the advice offered by Sir Otto Niomeyer. It is said that because of the Niemeyer plan New Zealand conditions are “more atrocious than the worst we have seen in the Commonwealth.” It is said that effective wages of the railwaymen have boon reduced to 30s a week by a process of “lopping at the cash equivalent and raising the rental portion of the emolument by 200 per cent.” “Inhuman conditions” is said to he the description given by their secretary to the plight of the railway workers. It is also stated that riots among the hordes of the unemployed have been common., the severity of the New Zealand winter being appalling, having regard to empty stomachs and indifferent clothing and bedding. Business, according to the writer of the remarkable article. is becoming worse and worse despite a wholesale wage-slashing, and the credit of the country abroad has deteriorated despite a slavish adoption of the Niemeyer outlook. Tt issaid that wages in New Zealand during the past couple of years have been cut in all cases 30 per vent., and in some instances a-s high

as 70 per ceill. “According to the Tory gospel pr carolled so carelessly,” says the writer, “this should abolish tilieinploylneut. Despite it. wo find that approximately 100,000 moil cannot got full-time jobs in New Zealand. Comparing the population of New Zealand with that of Australia, it means that the percentage of unemployment is even higher there than here. When the breakdown of Capitalism began to have its first serious effect in New Zealand, the Government and the employers rushed to the Arbitration Court with applications for wage cuts. The old stories about the high cost of production were told, and the. Court obliged with a cut of 20 per cent. But the promised good times, because of lower wages, did not arrive. It was not long before there was another dash to the Court for a further reduction. The result of it ad is that the standard of living in New Zealand to-day is lower than in 1900. No class of worker has missed the axe, and no section of the Government service has been harder hit than the teachers.”

Another extract from the article rends; “Just as Australia is being forced to do by the financial interests. New Zealand has curtailed its social services. The maternity allowances have been reduced, and at the same time the hospital rates to be paid by mothers have been increased. Yet with it all. New Zealand has failed by a very wide margin to balance its Budget. The story of the wages tax on the workers outside the Public Service makes pitiful reading. The miners have been forced from the day wages or contract rates to the tributing system. This is the first time that the workers in the coal industry in any "British country have been forced on to the tribute system. Tt explains why there has been recent trouble in the New Zealand coal industry. The men cannot make a living. . . . Behind it all is an attempt to break down the unions. That the Government is behind the move is demonstrated by ist tactics in ordering coal from outside countries in order to break down the resistance which the miners attempted.” “Enough has been written.'’ the. article concludes, “to show tlmt Now Zealand has tried out the policy of Niomeycrism. And what has been the country’s reward? The reduction of the workers’ living standard, but the promised work for all has not materialised. And has the abundance of loan money that was supposed to he awaiting any country that would adopt the Nieme.ver plan been provided? Is any further example wanted that Ni<‘meyerism is a confidence trick so far as the people are concerned.”