TRADE AND LABOUR.

North Otago Times, Volume CVII, Issue 17748, 19 March 1927, Page 4

TRADE AND LABOUR.

In the brdinary course of Ihings, trade should increase with us but not to the same extent as in the past; our exports are confined to the primary industries and will expand only if those engaged upon them are able tp produce on pre-' sent prices of land at a profit, but that result can only be attained if fhey ,are not destroyed in the meanl ilme by the aspirations of labour. i ! At present there is every reason to i | fear, unless a halt is called, that j i they will he. A farmer in discussing | ! these matters with the "Mercantile j ! Gazette" some few days since re- j j marked that ,it was not the capital i j charges on the land which was the j j irouble, but the various costs with ; I v/hich they were saddled, made up l i in most cases for the beneiit of the j 5 anionists to maintain their wages at = ! a nominally high . rate, ,and we j I :hink he was right. The burning ; ; euestion for our legislators must be, i ; issuming that the Arbitration Act is j ; not repealed, is it possible that the 1 . unions' policy of continually in- j • creasing the cost of labour may be j maintained * without injuring the i farmer and eventually driving him | from the land. Our contemporary I . does not think that the rival claims | ; can be harmonised until our union- ; ■ ist members realise that high wages | and low production are economicai { impossibilities. If wages have ap- j parently advanced and production j has lagged hehind, the monetany ] value of what the worker receives j in terms of commodities must fallOne hears very often now "I was better off when I received 8s a day than I am now with twelve." The reason is ohvious and is confirmed by the advance report which has been made by the Labour delegates who have been sent to America. They find that the great secret of that nation's prosperity is the high wages which the wdrkers receive and which are possible because of an equivalent in production which is given. It is also certain that high remuneration cannot be paid out of air, must come from goods produced by the worker, who can receive his wages from nothing else. The delusion from which the English miners sufxered lasi year was tjie belief that if the wage they tequired could not be paid by the employers other funds could be made available, but who was the custodian of those moneys, or in what manner they cauld.be converted to the use of the miners were ; questions left in glorious uncer- \ tairity. It was only when the com- j mon-sense of the men came to the j rescue that it dawned upon them j they had been expecting to extract j a quart of liquor from a pint pot. In this country ftiany of the socalled sheltered trades Aiave been enabled to force their wages up to a point wnich tends to increase prices and these cannot be reduced while the Arbitration Court continues raising values of goods. If pribes recede the purchasing ppwer of the sovereign incrSases, and labour freed from restrictions, the' ordinary laws of supply and demand would preserve a fair equation between prices and wages to the' benefit of everyone.