“A BEAUTIFUL DREAM”

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 138, 1 September 1927, Page 14

“A BEAUTIFUL DREAM”

MINIMUM WAGE OF £5 A WEEK MR. McCOMBS S BILL (THE SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. A mere matter of £1 a day or £5 a week, as a universal minimum wage, was the object of the Minimum Wage Bill, which was taken to its second reading stage in the House this evening by the sponsor, Mr. J. McCombs, Lyttelton. When Mr. McCombs announced tin figure aimed at Mr. D. Jones chimei in, “Is that all?’’ and Mr. T. W. Rhode; could not resist saying “Is that hoy you reduce the cost of living?” Nothing daunted by the sarcasm i the early stages, Mr. McCombs spolc for a full hour upon the genera principle und ---lying the relation o work and wages, and quoted at grea length from books upon the subject his expressed desire being to recor< the opinion of the world’s greates experts. When asked how he was going t; reconcile his views with the require ments of the small farmer, he claim 2:

that the fundamental interests of the wage-earner and the small farmer were identical. Business concerns in New Zealand were going slow, he said, not because the employer or worker willed it so, but because of the restricted demand for goods and services. Henry Ford had said that country-wide high wages spelt country-wide prosperity .and he, Mr. McCombs, believed that the wages of the worker automatically determined the standard of living of the farmer.

THEORY ALONE The Hon. G. J. Anderson, Minister of Labour, described the Bill as “a beautiful dream,” and said that it emphasised the futility of theory alone, a theory founded on books but never applied. Mr. McCombs: It is applied in America. Mr. Anderson: You ask for £5 a week. Why not make it £lO. Mr. McCombs: I had to make a commencement somewhere. Mr. Anderson: I know farmers who would leave their farms to-morrow if they could get a steady job at £5 a week. So long as the court is there the worker, so far as the minimum wage is concerned, is well protected, but where are we going to get the money for this? Mr. McCombs: Increased production. Mr. H. E. Holland: What do you mean by no money ? Mr. Anderson: 1 say it cannot be done. It is a beautiful dream, and will never be enforced in this country. FIRS. O SNEER Mr. Holland said that those who received £3 daily were frequently the first to sneer at the proposal to raise the wage of a man who received less than £1 a day. Government members contributed frequent interjections to the Labour speeches. Mr. McLeod conceded that a family man on £4 a week was on the bare bread line. Mr. M. J. Savage cut in: Well, how does he get on when out of work? Mr. McLeod: I have not yet heard a sensible suggestion for a permanent remedy of the position. It will not be effected by increasing wages. Mr. Holland: Is it sound, then, to suggest reduced wages? A desultory discussion was carried on until midnight, when the second reading was rejected on a division by 47 votes to S, and the House adjourned.