THE CRISIS IN THE FLAX MILLING INDUSTRY.

Shannon News, 14 August 1928, Page 2

THE CRISIS IN THE FLAX MILLING INDUSTRY.

■ (To the Editor.) Sir, —Recently the news reached us that the directors and workers of English railway companies have co-oper-ated in accepting a necessary .-eduction in salaries and wages. This is a new principle in industrial adjustments and one which if generally followed would make strikes and lock-outs extremely rare. Why is the same means not used to undo "the deadlock in the flax milling industry? The workers have agreed to a substantial reduction on condition that the /- millers' shw that the industry cannot pav the award rate and as an alternative have suggested a- sliding scale rate. The millers have declined to prove the first condition and have refused the alternative. Thus the onus is on I them; for the wage rate the employees have agreed to vary has been fixed ■ after due consideration by the Arbitration Court and is therefore a legal one. If it is a fair thing to ask the worker to accept a reduction in a living wage; which means that he has to curtail his outlay on some necessity of life, is it not equally fair to ask. the miller, the landlord, the mortgagee and the banker to accept a like reduction of income which to "them would only mean the curtailment of luxury. I venture to say that the New Zealand workman has as much common sense and'sweet reasonableness as any, one and that if these others agreed to the course suggested work could be at once resumed. Why ask the weakest but most necessary partner to carry . all the load? I say the weakest partner because the present policy of the miller seems to bie the old one of submission by starvation.. Fortunately, this poliey, is not likely to be mueh * longer available as this community is already too enlightened to alTow wromen and children to starve; and soon it will have advanced far enough to insist that in all disputes of this nature it will itself decide what adjustments must take place, for after all it is the community that pays.—l am, etc.. . ''