The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. THURSDAY, APRIL 22, 1920. SIGNS OF LABOUR TROUBLE.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3467, 22 April 1920, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

THURSDAY, APRIL 22, 1920. SIGNS OF LABOUR TROUBLE.

With which is incorporated ' “The Taihapé Post and Waimarino ‘ N'ews."’

‘Labour ranks in Britain, and throughout the _British -Empire are as "well informed on the subject of arbitrary price-making and price-fixing of life necessities as the-profiteers who are actually engaged in therdishonest ‘trickery, and it seems that Labour in Britain has determined that if a shortage of food and clothing is just cause for arbitrarily adding hundreds: per ‘cent. on to their cost of production, it is equally just for Labour to adopt Jsimilar _Venal practices. -One British nexvspaper points out that the penny ,reel of cotton is now sixpence, and it gives along list of articles and their prices, going .on to show that the selling-price is arbitrarily fixed, having_ no relation to the actual cost, and it states at least three ._‘llundred per cent, on some goods is admittedly due to it claimed shortage of supply. A It [mentions that huge associations of capital owned by people trading in a Jparticular commodity will proclaim a shortage, having cornered the main source of supply, they will —c-ommence a rapid succession of increases of selling-p;-ice, pleading that shortage is {L good and moral reason why they [should sell for ten millions what cost ‘them but one or two millions; that jthey, as the British newspaper states, ‘are doing a perfectly honest thing in lselling a reel of cotton, hitherto sold for one penny, at sixpence and even rmore. Labour having to pay the arbitrarily fixed prices, made on an engineered shortage, has necessitated i increased wages not only in the works ‘iof the arbitral‘y-price makers, but ialso in industries in which there is !no cornering and no ‘arbitrary pricelfixing possible. There are therefore ilarge iiidfistrial forces, not generally, jlclassed as la‘b»oul‘, that will be glad to; experience the clash that is to give‘ the death stroke which will end the whole detestable orgy of legalised I'obbery, hence it is that thousands of smaller shopkeepers in Britain are throwingtheir weight into the scale with Labour. It is monstrous that the people of Britain should have fought the world’s common enemy, returning home victorious to find that merchants, who did no fighting, were fixing the price of life necessities to them in Britain on what they would fetch in Germany, irrespective of what those commodities cost in Britain to import or manufacture. It is becoming apparent that this unprincipled, gross extortion has been carried to- a dangerous extreme; federations and affiliations of workers and the" middle classes in Britain have not the best augury for either industrial peace or for the rover-much "vaunted sacredness of the rights of property, and a clash between the parties of sacred rights of property and those who iiold human life more sacred is to eventuate in‘ the néar future if

cabled news recently arriving means what. is stated. Wagesa._i’n Britain are now 120 per cent. higher than bcjforc the war, and yet Labour. in". all lclasses, finds that prices of necessiities have made living more difficult {than in pre-war days. It will be {not-ed with concern that all maritillle workers are federating, including the fiMerchant Service Guild, and that affiliations with federations of other workers are being negotiated. Cardiff railwaymen have .-set the newly adoptled methods to break down profiteeriug going by demanding a minimum wageho-f five pounds and a fifty 1391 cent decrease in prices of necessitiesThese railwaymen have appealed t 0 the Triple Alliance to consider a national strike in the event of their demands not being granted. TWO hundred thousand miners have tendered notice to strike Ibecause mineownersk will not keep their promise 110 settle the dispute over work in abnormal situations under‘groun‘d. Drivers of passenger vehicles are making demands that Omnibus Companies d 0 not seem inclined to concede; while it is stated the Parliamentary Leaders of Labour are ominously quiet. The London Omnibus Company Dre- ‘ sents a typical case just the opposite ?to that of sewing cotton, shipping, «food and others. It will be realised that the Omnibus people cannot pass what increase in wages: they concede on to the public without lessening the amount of patronage their vehi--cles receive, therefore they have to provide, in -higher» fares, not only for increased wages, but also for loss of patrona.ge. , On the other hand cotton spinners, shipowners, coalowners and such-like when conceding increased wages pass on the increase to the ‘ public with something added, knowing the public must have their services. Twenty per cent. increase in wages is estimated to result on one hundred per cent. increase in prices of commodities-, and this indicates the viciousness :Of the legalised principle which permits men to sell at 207 what may have cost them less than five, because they protest there is a shortage. Workers throughout the Empire are fed up with shortages, and they now seem determined to use their forces to break down the flagrant robbery :of having to -.pa.y. -20 per cent. as reasonable ' -profit ' and «from: -100 per lcent_ to over 3000 per-*-cent. for shortlage. To-day, shortage is the dearest lthing on the market,‘ and the masses ’of the people are not inclined to go on purchasing them at the price milllionaires are putting upon them._The Cardiff railwaymen, it is stated, are fully aware of the reasonableness of their demand, for, it is said, woollensl would {be abnormally profitable if; manufacturers marketed them at on'e< hundred per cent. oif; cotton goods would also remain «unreasonably profitable with -one hundred per cent. off, and a long list of articles are given showing high profits if sold at from fifty to one hundred per cent. less, retail. Applying the attitude of British Workel'S_ and-middle classes to the masses and the cost _’o-f life necessaries in New Zealand the conditions are I remarkably similar. when it is dislclcsed that woollen inanufacturersl are Charging a. price outrageously out] of all comparison with cost of produc-' tion, they unblushingly state thatl their looms and spindles are idle through shortage of labour, which prevents them meeting the demands—— there is a shortage, and they sell to the people who can offer the highest price, though it be hundreds per cent. over what cost, in all honesty, W-‘lr—l rants. Poor people find it impossible. I with their wages, to pay the price the! rich are Willing to pay and so they must either go naked, or strike for increased wages. Strikes, then, are the result of that huge, unrealsonable, dishonest, unprincipled demand for hundreds per cent. on shortages of a SUDDLV that iggill many instances not real, but engineered. _