The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1915. ECONOMISING.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 348, 9 December 1915, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1915. ECONOMISING.

("With which is incorporated The Taihape Post and Waimarino News.)

The almost constant appeal by economists and particularly by the'Government in Great Britain for greater and still greater economy should cause our own people to reflect upon the possible advantages and disadvantges, of cutting down daily expenditure here, in New Zealand. The great bulk of our people, the working classes, are not placed as the working classes at Home are. In England the frequent rises in wages have immensely increased the spending power of the people taking the,responsibility out of the hands of the few for safeguardng the nation's wealth to a great extent and placing it on the shoulders of the many. In Britain the added earning power of labour has led to reckless expenditure of one.sort or another, and men have even been content to work half their time and devote the other half to ' squandering what they have earned. The revolutionary change lifting labour from a bare means of living to comparative affluence has naturally led to wild extravagance. In New Zealand nothing of the kind has happened, in fact, the tendency has been in quite an opposite direction. There has been no increase of wages here, but there has been such an increase in the prices at which necessaries of life are sold as to make the workers' three pounds per week buy little more than two pounds' worth of necessities. While the spending power of the working people in Britain has < enormously increased, that of the New Zealand worker has deplorably decreased. We say deplorably, because as the spending power of the masses is lessened it must similarly affect every class of business, and tend to gather the . purchasing medium into the hands of the few. Thrift is indeed a virtue, but the persistence with which some in authority exhort our working classes to specially economise on account of the war is to a large extent little short of irony. The conditions in England are the antithesis of what they are here'. England is daily becoming poorer while the earnings of workers are rapidly increasing. On the other hand, New Zealand has become £7,220,000 richer •during the last 12 months, while the spending power of the people has decreased. We mean thatj reckoned in commodities that he has to purehfise, the New Zealand worker, is ..one-third poorer. ' The position between wealth and wages here is the opposite of what it is in Britain. It seems that

those who urge a cutting down of the purchase of necessaries of life by the people Avho are earning from two to three pounds a week might with advantage to the health and well-being of all classes devote their attention and use their power and influence towards putting the purchasing value of the workers' shilling on a more reasonable basis. It must not be thought that the seven millions and a quarter of our increased riches has no debit against it. There is the war expenditure to be met, and even if it swallows up the whole of this sum we at--no worse off financially than we were before the war. It is very obvious that the time is near at hand when our war expenditure will almost wholly cease, but the riches will still continue to teem into our land for years, probably exceeding the splendd increase of last year", and amounting in the aggregate to some forty or fifty millions. The high value of our primarv products will doubtless continue for years, but should the feared slump come, how is it going to affect the purchasing power of those who are now barely able, owing to high prices, to live comfortably? It is extremely desirable that economy and thrift'should be practised wherever possible, but the value of money as compared with that of commodities dO e S not leave much margin for the money-box after a.worker's family is provided for. There is no parallel between livng conditons here and at Home, and we are inclined to the view that settlers, in place of hoarding the huge profits they are making should judiciously expend at least some portion of it in improving thenholdings to enable them to increase their volume of production so as not to feel any pinch should the pessimistic opinion about a coming slump prove even partially correct.