The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 1915. ECONOMIC CHANGES.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 158, 9 March 1915, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 1915. ECONOMIC CHANGES.

(With which is incorporated The Tai hapo Po3t 'ina Waimarlno News.)

Wo are not always grateful to the man at the Australian end of the cable who selects the news items to be despatched to us for publication, but now and then, amongst the indifferent, we re- ! ceive an item that to some extent compensates us for any waste of time and disappointment we may have experienced. Just now Australia is in the hands of a Labour Government, and we are pleased to know just how that great polemical question of labour is moving among our neighbours on the other side of the Tasman Sea. What many old-time labour enthusiasts strongly Urged years ago, later leaders have only commenced to realise. Long before Australia had a Labour Government, when New Zealand was credited with being the country with the most progressive and ag-. gressive labour legislation in the world, we had men who urged that strikes for higher wages would Mvoy fettle the labour question. .'Now, only a weojj jjgQj the Hon. Andrew Fisher told our labour organisations that strikes in a general way were useless, and often barbarous. He hinted that greaj, progressive movements were.about to" feveniuate in Australia and advised our labouring community to federate and federate, until a strong force capp.ble of definite and uniform action was established. The next important labour move in Australia reached us hy cable last Friday, telling us that Mr, Hot hum] ill his great address to the Labour Council made the surprising statement that the possibility of the workers further improving their v/&g6% position was rapidly approaching the limit.of what was achievable by arbitration and industrial legislation. The next step, ho said, would fee. a steep step.. .The aim was .not. so, mueji to get' inojee wage*? but to ■ make thi wages go further, IJis state?

incut is not .surprising - owing to its novelty but from the fact that modei*n leaders of labour have at last to admit the truth of what leaders of many years ago strongly urged and for the expression of which they were ultimately discai'ded. The present high cost of living, Mr. Holm an said, was not due to the rise of wages, and then he announced that the Government intended to institute the first step towards the nationalisation of the necessities of life: they proposed to tl create a market authority, having complete control of the whole food supplies of Sydney," which would first be controlled by the Government, but later would be handed over to a Greater Sydney Council that was about to be created. He outlined a State scheme for dealing with rapidly perishing articles of food such as meat, fish, vegetables and fruit, and he stated that they Avere starting a Government bread trust in Sydney, by taking over a monopoly of the bread supply and paying the bakers on their business basis so much per ton. When the Government first started in a limited area, it was found that a State bakery was able to sell bread at s penny a loaf below the present price. This, he said, would mean saving the people £1,250,000 annually. We have been told by Mr. Massey that we have bread at a lower price here than in any other part of the Empire. Of course, that is not the case, for we have to pay n*ore for our loaf in Taihape than is paid in either England or Australia, but there are not wanting the indications that a Nemisis is shortly to overtake the state of opportunism with which New Zealand is at thi.« moment convulsed. It has been unequivocally stated by leading statesmen and economists of tlu world that the social world wil l never again be what it was before the war, and view the situation as we will the near future seems fraught with many change? that will be brought about by the greed and exploitation oi those who live like leeches on tin life-blood of the people. We mean the men who in the na tion's greatest distress and helplessness do not hesitate to heap up gold regardless of the suffering and death their action entails. Nor are capitalists alone to blame, for there is much to alarm the Empire in the attitude labou:* in Engalnd is taking up. While their brothers and fellow-work-men stand in the trenches for weeks together facing the Em pire's greatest enemy, waiting foi ammunition to keep back tin would-be invader of their lane 1 and homes, they refuse to worh in the factories making the needed ammunition unless they ar< paid Avhat at another time would have been declared unreasonable The lives of their brothers and' fellow-Avorkers, in. the . trenchc. c are nothing to them if they cannot extort the money requisite foj them to live in luxury, at home With all the expressed concer for a eoure of decency, it is indeed time our Government made some effort, to stem the tide of exploitation and opportunism that is sweeping over New Zealand, for opportunism in high places will certainly bring its aftermath of trouble.