ABIDING IMPROVEMENT.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 277, 28 February 1929, Page 4

ABIDING IMPROVEMENT.

ADVANCEMENT in the standard of living in New Zealand is not keeping pace with the increase of primary production, and other signs of prosperity. This is a seeming contradiction, a social and economic paradox. The subject is ably dealt with in the latest Bulletin prepared by the Department of Economics of Canterbury College for the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce. From the tables of comparisons given it is apparent that while the standard of living or the wage-earners in New Zealand is greatly superior to that obtaining in Southern Europe, and much higher than in Great Britain, it is nevertheless below those of Canada and the United States. As “the brightest jewel in the Imperial Crown ” our condition should! be at least equal to that obtaining anywhere else in the world, but it -is not. so good as in some other places. Although there are sectional variatibns the average standard, is not higher than that obtaining in 1914. Whence comes this comparative failure? Why have standards elsewhere improved while New Zealand has remained! stationary ? So far as the wage-workers ace concerned there.-is a lesson to be learned from more successful countries, and the lesson is that any real, general and abiding improvement must come from greater co-operation between employers and employees, better ldanagemr nt and organisation

and more scientific marketing methods, Higher standards can only be procured from greater output, plus the other factors mentioned, which truisms have not yet been realised in all their pregnant meaning in this Dominion.

The State has set up machinery, the purpose of which is to protect the standards in some callings, but in the long run, ar.d over the country as a whole, these devices can effect very little. The degree of productivity of labour in industry is the basic guide. True, in some industries an artificial level may be created and by monopolistic practice the surcharges passed on to the consumer, hut these benefits are strictly .limited by the consumers’ power of purchase. The State can make little difference to the actual productivity per/head. It may alter the ratios between sections of the community, but it cannot actually create the body of wealth upon which the general prosperity depends. No employer can indefinitely pay more than the industry produces, and any attempt to ring the changes there must end in failure, the last situation being worse than the first. Ultimately, additional payment cannot exceed the net value of additional productions. Individuals may gain, for a time, but owing to the ensuing slackening of hands in order to make the receipts go round, the body of workers must suffer, so that on the whole the loss is greater than the gain.

By over-regulation and interference the State in New Zealand has hindered general progress much more than it has helped the wage-earner to secure higher standards of comfort, for it is manifestly impossible to improve the general condition by preferential practices which give an advantage to a few sections by penalising all the rest.

Great and more intelligently-direct-ed effort is needed, by which method Europe and America are profiting, employees and employers combining to the one end. As we have to compete in the world’s markets with these other countries, we can only compete successfully and raise our standards by adopting the methods of mass—not merely sectionalsuccess.