PRODUCTION AND WAGES

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3610, 8 March 1927, Page 4

PRODUCTION AND WAGES

THE GOAL TO AIM AT

Do the workers want higher wages? Certainly they do. Everybody wants more if they can get it. The question is how can the higher wages be secured. In putting this question it is well (o think of real wages not merely the amount "of money received as pay. If, you get £1 a week more in pay but the goods and services you have to buy cost 30/- more your real wage is actually decreased. It is very plain that pay and prices cannot be separated—the first depond's on the second for its real meaning in value to the worker. Wages, then, real wages, come from the supply of products. It can be taken as a matter of fact that the world over a high wage rate goes with a high production per worker and a low wage rate with low production. The Alliance of Labour contends that the way to raise wages is for all the workers to unite in one body and force the powers that be, (employers, Arbitration Court, or what not) to pay more.

This is a.very simple way of solving the problem, altogether too simple. Many of the workers, not being entirely simple themselves 1)old back from, this Unity Scheme feeling there is a catch in it somewhere. The truth is that the idea ignores the vital fact that when wages are raised in many occupations the cost is added to the price of those things the workers have to buy, and they are no better off. They have more money in pay hut their real wages are not increased. This process of passing on the increase must obtain for otherwise the industries would reach a stage when they could no longer continue in operation. It comes back to this that increase of i;eal wages has to be looked for not by getting more pay but in getting more of the things which are usually brought with the money you get. A more plentiful supply of products is the way to raise wages. The Alliance of Labour and other Social organisations, will not hear of “more production” as they think it means just harder work for the toilers and “greater enslavement to the capitalist class.” Instead of arguing on the theoretic grounds these critics might with advantage give some study to the country where organised Labour stands for high production and high wages, both nominal and real. The country is America and the organisations the American Federation of Labour. That.' big Federation does not stand! for over work or under pay. It is at present, seeking a five days’ working week. MACHINE POWER AND MEN.

The question of greater output is not one of harder strain on human muscle. It calls rather for better organisation, greater horse power, itnore machinery. Mir J. Ellis Barker in a recent work —“Economic Statcmanship,” gives the results of a study and comparison of 26 industries in the United States and the

United Kingdom. In America horse power used per 1.000 workers was 2.400 and for the same number in Britain 1.200. The gross output per worker per year was America, 8.735 dlollars and Britain 3.100, the net output per worker a week, America 29 dollars; Britain.'ll dollars.

If we turn to a table published by the International Labour Office in Geneva giving the rates of real wages in various Countries from January to October 1925, we find the American Index number at 100 and British 55. What we have to ge't hold of is that it is the machine which makes the higher output, higher wages and lighter work. Whilst British workers are being incited to* aim at Socialism, a State which is nebulous, theoretic and much discussed,, the American workersi are reaching out to control as much of industry as they can iu an ordinary way of business. Thus a group of employees of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, numbering 10,358 in February 1920 purchased 884,041 shares at a market value of 38,000,000 dollars. They are the largest holders of stock next to John D. Rockfeller Jr. In June 1920 there were 30 Labour Banks in twenty different States with a combined capital of 9,300,000 dollars; surplus and profits 3,799,422 dollars. Three things organised Labour in America is doing—producing the goods, earning big money, saving and investing. This is aiming high. It means liberating the workers from the poorer conditions to a higher state of independence. Our little country urgently requires greater production and though labour alone cannot give, what is wanted it can help very materially, lo its own advantage and to the strengthening of the Dominion. (Contributed by the N.Z. Welfare League).