The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1917 INCREASED PRODUCTION.

Taihape Daily Times, 6 November 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1917 INCREASED PRODUCTION.

(With which is incorporated The Tai* hapo Post and Waimarino News).

For very many years employers have had bitter experience of the iron heel method of dealing with labour A few short weeks ago it seemed as though a new era of thingcs was about to commence. The Federated Employers of New Zealand passed a resolution to commence upon a campaign to bring labour and capital into closer relationship; to devise means whereby a better understanding might be reached so as to lessen, or entirely eliminate, the disastrous method of settling differences by strikes. Prom what was made public of the discusions there seemed to be good grounds for hoping that employers were at last on the right track *o get the utmost from our industrial life. Now, ’ however, the conference of Chambers of Commerce to be held in Wellington in the near future, indicates that there are yet employers who prefer to perpetuate as long as they possibly can what still remains to the industrial world of the old order of lord and slave. A matter is to be discussed which presumes that industrial warfare is to continue as heretofore and that there is to be an encouragement to meet force with force. There is no apparent sympathy with what the Federated Employers suggest towards cutting out industrial strife. Perhaps the last paragraph of the Chamber of Commerce’s statement of case is not wha at It was intended to say, for it seems to have but little relation to the remainder of the purpose to be discussed. To or-

gauise for meeting force with contrary action is. to throw down the gauntlet, and to give an insincere aspect to all the protestations of desire to reach amicable relationship. We do not believe that the Chambers of Commerce mean what they say, for to organise to counteract strikes is a threat against the other side that must operate towards keeping labour nervous about real intentions and of the bona lides of protestations. The right note has, however, been sounded; increased production is vitally necessary, and everything acting counter, all that stands in the way must be bridged over or eliminated. That is what the conference of Chambers of Commerce is going to discuss with a view to finding ways and means of accomplishing their object. Members are business men first, and they realise j that taxation is going to press much ! more heavily in the future, and that the stripping of this country of its manhood is going to place the burden on fewer and fewer shoulders as the stripping process proceeds. It is the productive capacity of the country they are concerned with ? not unproductive industry, or the partially productive. They realise that to meet the heavy load of taxation which is already in sight, more riches must be produced Then the statement of their case mixed up with organising to counteract strikes. The conference of the Chambers of Commerce will perhaps pardon us for saying that strikes have really very little to do with the question of increased production, only that the pro-, secution of one would operate very largely towards elminating the other. Increased production if carried to its legitimate and desired limits is the antidote for strikes. It is the curtailment of production by aggregation of farms into huge sheep-runs, the obliteration of intensive cultivation' shutting up of schools in hitherto populous producing country districts, the letting of farm homesteads go lo decay that were the haunts of thriving, happy families, that is the real block to production. If more production is really what is wanted, the Chambers of Commerce should, while Parliament was in session, have urged the passing of a law compelling all land-holders to cultivate a reasonable portion of their holdings, and , grow food thereon. It is pitiable to hear men urging increased production, while going off at a tangent on every course but that which leads to what they professedly desire. One is led to ask whether they are really sincere, whether they are out for High prices and cheai); jlabour which operate to lessen but do increase the profits of those who merely handle products at the expense of the men who furnish‘ the' cheap labour. This country will dally with the problem that awaits solution; the time is~ coming when the burden of taxation will make us understand that it will be no shuffling of cheap labour and high prices that will solve the difficulty. It will be realised then that we have not produced as we should and could; employers—industrialists and producers —will be brought, to a sense of what increased production really is, and there will be a sincere desire to hurry forward the only means at their disposal to cope with their accumulated load of taxes_ They will not stop to juggle with prices and cheap labour, for those who pay the high prices will have equal burdens with those who make them. Surely the notion that starvation of the masses with high living costs and low rates of wages is increasing production is recognised as a self-condemned fallacy. Until it is there is no hope of improvement. We hear so much fallacious reasoning about the enormous national loss through industrial strife, which has no existence in fact. Strife is more often than not between parties who are non-producers or partial producers. If the watersider won’t cary wheat, the owner or producer must carry it himself, hut that does not lower the value of the wheat, nor reduce the money it will bring to the country. No matter what happens by handlers fighting a bushel of wheat will bring to the country the same amount of riches. It does reduce the amount the han'dler receives for his services by additional time 'involved, but it does uofTessen the in come of the country one penny. Uet us not temporise by wilful or careless Postulates and misunderstandings It is only real production that brings us the wealth to meet ouf'tax obligations. Let us grow two bushels of wheat where we now grow one two sheep instead of one, two tons of potatoes instead of cultivate two acres instead of one, put the millions of acres of unproductive, unsettled lands into a state of production, then will labour troubles recede to a vanishing point; then will there be the produce to make business flourish; then will there come to New Zealand the wealth < in exchange for our increased production that will enable us to pay

increascd taxation, and at the same time stave off a period of famine. What do we find some employers doing in practice? JB’ecause they cannot obtain the price they have arbitrarily placed upon their commodities they wilfully destroy them rattier than let them contribute towards the reduction in the cost of living and as . ’ a natural corollary, to the amount of remuneration the winner of the destroyed products, required to live upon. They will produce but rather than let that increase operate towards the elimination of labqur troubles they criminally destroy it. While we permit producers to so act it is sheer irony to agitate for increased production. If Chambers of Commerce and Employers’ Federations had been fundamentally sincere they could Have secured increased production long ago. The men on the land are filling the place made for them, and it is only by immensely increasing their number that business men and workers will have their anxiety for the future removed.