ANOTHER IDOL DISPLACED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 120, 23 April 1925, Page 4

ANOTHER IDOL DISPLACED.

Mr A. B. Piddington, K.C., who paid a flying visit to New Zealand early this year, and on the strength of a few days’ stay in Wellington contributed a series of articles to a Sydney journal in which he made the most of certain of his alleged discoveries of matters which were said to reflect on the Government of the country, appears to have fallen from grace. In 192 U he acted as a Royal Commissioner on the basic wage question for the Commonwealth Government, and as a result of his inquiries and voluminous evidence taken over a long period, he furnished an altogether impossible report suggesting a scheme of payments for Australian workers altogether beyond the capacity of the various industries to which it was proposed they should be applied. The Commonwealth Government declined to act on his report, recognising its impracticability; but the Labour unions seized upon it with avidity, and Mr Piddington was elevated into a sort of hero and came to be regarded by the unions as an authority on the wages question. He has recently been acting as adviser to the Queensland Trades Union Economic Research Committee, but has had to submit to criticisms by the Labour Press which indicate that he is no longer regarded as a man who understands “working class philosophy.” The Brisbane Daily Standard, which also functions as the official Labour daily, has interviewed Air Piddington, who has been indiscreet enough to say that “he does not believe Queensland’s position as a producer for tho world market is likely to force the capitalists in that State, in common with their contemporaries elsewhere, to keep down production costs, including wages, to the lowest possible level.” Mr Piddington’s reply practically covers the question which was put to him by the Standard. He amplifies it by the statement that “no modem employer believes that to keep wages ‘at the lowest possible level’ means keeping down production costs. If (he said) this question were to be answered in the affirmative, the Queensland workers in export industries ought to accept helplessly the inevitable consequences and send a crusade to their contemporaries elsewhere to compel other countries to invent a different system. I prefer (Air Piddington added) the objective of improving social conditions in our own country by our own methods. Other countries are sure to follow.” His statement in this direction leads the Brisbane Standard to say: “His expressed opinions do not indicate that ho bolieves in the necessity of a change in the present ownership of the means of production. He will not admit that the rule of private property imparts an anarchic character to production.” And so Air Piddington, who three or four years ago was the idol of tho official Labour Press of Australia, has fallen from grace, and will havo to give place to some adviser gifted with a higher appreciation oi that nonsensical thing “working class philosophy,” the application of which to the Government of any country invariably brings about serious financial troubles arising out of the imprudent ventures in the shape of Stato enterprises and extravagant expenditure in wholly unnecessary directions. It has cost Queensland many millions during the last ten years, quite apart from the eleven millions lost on railways, which paid their way prior to 1915.