MR BEAUCHAMP AND LABOUR.

Taihape Daily Times, 16 June 1919, Page 5

MR BEAUCHAMP AND LABOUR.

r , ——— TQ tho Editol> * ' Sir,—ln your- paper of Saturday I notice Mr Beauchamp gives us a diatribe on labour. He gives advice, etc, to labour. Can you tell me, sir, ia {his the same gentleman whose name figured so unpleasantly in the Cost of Living Commission some three or four years since. Aat that time his name figured conspicuously as the friend and backer of that Trust in , 4o*bryo, The Merchants' Association. Now, sir, Mr Beauchamp makes two statements which are worthy of note, and which give colour to his true feelings towards labour. He says this country is suffering (mark the word) from continual rising of wages by application to industrial tribunals, and secondly, that Taising wages is the cause of increased cost of living. In +V- first statement Mr Beauchamp sets his knowledge before- that of a judge of the Supreme Court, even after the lat- | ter has heard extensive evidence in matters in dispute., In the second, Mr Beauchamp tells what he knows only too well is only a half-truth. No one •will, of course, dispute the fact that "ifttge increases are passe,d on, but everyone knows that for every 1/ increase in wages the cost is passed on plus 100 per cent. If the public will take the trouble to read the evidence given before the last Cost of Living Commission of the representative of Eairburn, Wright, and Co. (particularly that referring to the raising of prices ybj the aforementioned (Association) they will readily understand, why prices continue to s oar. Mr Beauchamp may be an excellent Chairman of-Directors of a financial institution, but as an adviser to labour he is not worth his salt. —I am, etc., FAIR PLAY.