“Taranaki Central Press" MONDAY, APRIL 12, 1937. GOVERNMENT IN INDUSTRY.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 405, 12 April 1937, Page 4

“Taranaki Central Press" MONDAY, APRIL 12, 1937. GOVERNMENT IN INDUSTRY.

In warning the New Zealand Labour Conference of the possibly disastrous results of unreasonable demands upon employers, especially in the direction of a statutory fortnight’s holiday, the Minister of Industries and Commerce may have been thinking as much of what is already accomplished as of what is proposed. Certainly he was thinking of the new role of the Government, which is looked to by the workers for statutory concessions, regardless of what the Arbitration Court may say as to the state of industry. Mr. Sullivan is now studying the very problems that the Arbitration Court is set up to investigate, but he seems to be unduly optimistic when he promises that “the Government will find a way of solving any difficulty that may be proved.” if, for instance, the increase in imports in one or two small industries in New Zealand threatens the extinction of these industries, no legislative patching will cover the rent exposed in the industrial fabric. The fact is that the forty-hour week and statutory wage restorations are themselves experimental and the Government does not know how close it may be sailing to the wind even under the stimulus of better times. France, which granted this concession to the workers when <t was in the throes of a general strike, finds that it has become a formidable threat to the solvency of the “Blum experiment.” Devaluation rescued French trade by bringing French prices down to the world level in terms of gold, but these prices are rising again and the cost of the forty-hour we ek is variously estimated as an addition of 10, 15, or 20 per cent, to the increase of some 30 per cent .in the costs of production that has already resulted from paid holidays, wage increases and other social reforms. France desires to sweep away tariffs and quotas, but it finds itself faced with a demand for protection from the French manufacturer with his rapidly rising costs. There is a fairly close analogy in New Zealand, where the Government may find itself travelling in a vicious circle if it attempts to create artificial standards of prosperity.