The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE MONDAY, MARCH 24, 1919 SOLVING THE ECONOMIC PROBLEM.

Taihape Daily Times, 24 March 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

MONDAY, MARCH 24, 1919 SOLVING THE ECONOMIC PROBLEM.

(V/ith wideh is iacorporatwd The faih&pe Post uid WalTsp-mo News).

Because both, coal owners and coal workers in this Dominion are awaiting the result of the coal trouble in England, recent reports submited to the British Parliament have ia vital bearing on the solution of the coal issues here. The Bjritish Coal Commission handed in three reports, one from miners and labour representaives, which recommended granting the miners' full demands, including natioalisation of the coal industry,- a sceon)! from the coal owno/vs, which recommended that wages be increased eighteenpence for a sevenhours' day; and a third report signed by Mr Justice Sankey and employers, not coial owners, recommencing an immediate advance in wages of two shillings per day, a seven-hours' day from July, and, subject to the economic position at the end of 1920, a sixhours' clay is to bo conceded. The statement maidc by Judge Sankey and. the commission of employers who collaborated with him, that the acceptance of their repCfrt would result in the miners being paid ,'£30,000,000 more each year than they were previously receiving without raising the price of coal to the consumer. Thirty millions sterling were being taken by owners that the} r were by no system of justice entitled to. Is it any wonder that Judge .Sankey says the present system of ownership and working stands domncfd, iand that natioalisatio, unification by joint control or by national purchase must replace the national danger of private ownership? Moreover, Judge Sankey and his commission of employers condemn the housing of miners. They state that, it is a reproach to cur civilisation, and they suggest that a penny per ton on all coal won should be applied to housing improvement. This will praise one million sterling annually, iand it is a strong conjdemation of the mode of life that owners have forced upon their men. Thirty millions sterling are to be taken off the profits of owners without increasing the cost of coal to consumers, and another million sterling is to be taken,tannually to make the homes of miners habitable, and so that they are not a standing reproach to our civilisation. The extraoordinary aspect of the whole question is that the British Government at once accepted Judge Sankeky's report, but a still more amazing feature is that in spite of the limitations imposed upon owners with the cost of effecting changes, | amounting to £43,000,000 annually, owners are still to have a profit- of fourteenpence per ton on all f coal mined. With ' the concessions forced upon them- -by the Government, owners are still to go on taking £14,000,000 of net profits. When one comes to reason out ond understand what these men were pocketing as a result of sweating, ill-housing, and ill-feeding there can be no surprise about the labour ferment in Britain. It is safe to estimate that owners were taking fifty millions sterling in profits wdtile their

ainc,rs wore housed worse tlisn their

animals. Owners are to pay thirty

millions more in wages to those men, and they are to forego another million annually for housing improvemcnnt. and still they are iablc to take fourteen millions as profit, and yet coal owners have shamelessly protested that they were never guilty of profiteering. If there is any trouble in the coal industry caused by friction at the instance of owners or workers, then the mines will be put under national control. The British Government has adopted the spirit and letter of Judge Sankey's .report, and the men are immediately to have two shillings per 'day more wages, a seven-hour day, and later a six-hour day. What effect has this decision to have on the coal problem in this Dominion? If private ownership has proved a failure in Britain it has. by comparison, proved ten times a failure here. In Taihape, on a direct railway line from a great coal-mining centre, people arc kept coalless for weeks and even months together. Householders have oeen compelled to eooh and cleanse by virtue of fuel they could acquire and scrape up from anywhere, and even in the recent cold weather many houses are fireless, while occupants a.re waiting arid hoping for coal that will not come. Coal-owners In New Zealand have been apeing, and are still apeing, the procedure of British owners, and in spite of a Government that is sympathetic with them, they will be compelled to go the way the British owners have been forced by only common justice to take. When a few men get possession of the coal of a nation, the land, or any other essential to the existence of the State and race, and refuse to allow them to be used for the maintenance of the State and the life and welfare of tlie race, the time of private ownerships has run its legitimate course and tho State steps in. In combating this evil that has grown out of private-owner-ship of the essentials to human existence, there is a fear that, the rebound may go to other extremes. Not tho least important mission of the State in the future will be to see that the reaction of profiteering does not result in mankind being reduced to mere machinery, a condition in which, all enterprise by which alone real progress can be made is dangerously stifled. Ambition without- encouragement seems impossible: nationalisation of everything is subversive ot that ambition and desire to excel from which all progress springs. While it may be necessary to nationalise that from, which the necessaries of existence are won, those extremes must be avoided that could only result in a

spiritless, unambitious, unenterprising and lifeless people. The two spurs to work and progress are force and encouragement; mere manual labour can be made possible by force; force can also be used to compel education, but it is only something that enco'urages and spurs on ambition, intellect and genius to achieve that upon which the progress of civilisation must depend. Our aim is to point out the pitfalls ol going to opposite extremes while effecting urgently needed reforms, and in wiping right out of existence for ever those practices which all leading British statesmen of every political colour tell us are a reproach to civilisation. The process of exterminating social and industrial excreseencs of the reproach to civilisation order, is about to commence in this country. The methods of extermination have been fought out in detail in Britain, a lead has been given, and the way to more just, humane conditions, been pointed out, and the coal and railway situation here will soon be under the process of remodelling somewhat on the lines deemed necesssry in the Old Countrv.