ARE WAGES TOO HIGH?

Manawatu Herald, Volume LI, Issue 4504, 13 September 1930, Page 1

ARE WAGES TOO HIGH?

WANTED —A MOSES

A wonderful tribute to the work of Labour Union officials in New Zealand is revealed in official statistics - dealing - with the standard •of wages paid in this country. A perusal of these aeconqdishments* as recorded in official returns, not •going further back than 1914,

down to the latest returns available (1929) makes interesting Holding, and provides material for reflective meditation in these daws of bailiffs, unemployment Bills, and wrong (balances.

11 would be well for our leaders of thought, both in and out of Parliament, to come down to fundamentals. 'What is wanted in this country to-day more than at any other time in our history is courage. Most people understand and appreciate the fact that our country’s troubles are not organic. It is not our natural laud production that has petered out —far from it. All that: has happened is that- we are being compelled to accept the reward of persistent rebellion against natural laws. LABOUR ISOLATED. Organised labour is isolated. Capital sees the red rag and shuns the open highway. Courage? Yes —courage to enable us to openly admit and declare (bat our standards are ill-gotten, unstable, and

unsustainable. Labour leaders are not. fools, but so long as the other section itself fails to manifest conviction, so long as it persists in piecemeal capitulation to labour demands, so long also is labour excusable for building its pyramid of demands. We know that the distribution of the world’s wealth is unfair. We know too that this inequality in the possession of property is progressively accentuated as we examine our state of civilisation I rom primeval to modernity. In other words, the consideration given Lor our present standards and amenities has been found to be unsound and spurious. W.e all want, to see high standards for everybody. We want to see the theatres full. The inexorable law of supply, however, writes its standard on the wall, past which no artisan may go. We have repapered tin*' wall with arbitration awards and opened the window to the paradise of fools. Courage? Yes, we want a new Moses. COMPLACENCY.

Complacency in mass psychology is our worst enemy. We positively refuse to be disturbed. The Press of the country when it does give warnings speaks to deafened ears. As with the chain of superstition, no one likes to break the chain of economic distortion. Labour and living are balancing like contortionists on a see-saw, each unwilling to lead. Surely there is some uudctcrable mouthpiece available to the people. Parliament has its ears to the ground and its eyes on the ballot box. The Arbitration Court is entangled in the web of its hypnotising awards. Who then is to make the declaration that wages must be reduced? Who the giant to say it, come thunder if it will. Unpleasant and inconvenient political questions, according to the vogue, are relegated to Commissions. Here is a job for “Australia’s Bailiff,” Sir Otto Niemeyer, soon to he (be guest of the Dominion. Sir Otto’s statement published a day or two ago is worth quoting: “There is also evidence to show,” he said, “that the standard of living in Australia has reached a point which is economically beyond the capacity of the x country to bear without a considerable reduction of costs resulting in increased per capita output. At present, while the money wage of those employed is higher, almost double what it was in 191.1, the number of those who can attain that wage is .so steadily decreasing— unemployment having doubled since 1924 —that Australian workers as a body effectively receive little more than in 1911. The margin of those who have to be carried neutralises in the total the advantages of those who are fully employed, and this • process must increase unless an adjustment is made enabling a larg'er number to share iu the total dividend.”

We in New Zealand, happily, are not in a crash. We are not even actually straitened. Our ship of State is, however, sailing close enough to other craft well iu the breakers. Our captains must alter our course. —'Evening Post.