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PRICE OF INDUSTRIAL PEACE.

COST OF CONCESSION •TO LABOR. SOME STARTLING FIGURES (From, Auckland Star Correspondent.) London, March 25. With a national debt of about 7000 millions, and a Budget in sight for the coming year of 1400 millions, and faced with the possibility of having in the end to find 1500 millions to cover the coming twelve nifraths' expenditure, the notion of peace in the industrial world is grateful and comforting to the busi-, ness man in the Old Country. He wants peace badly, and js prepared to strain a good mafay points to. secure it: At the present time, however, he is beginning to doubt* whether the ' price which Labor is demanding for peace is) one that we can possibly pay and continue in business as a nation. A glance at the railway situation in the United Kingdom makes one wonder at what point Ministers will realise that the limit j of cocession-granting has arrived, .and that further rises in wages and. reductions in hours will bring disaster upon the nation at large. The gross revenue of the railways of the United Kingdom in 1913 was £139,000.000. Of that sum working expenses took £87,000,b00, which included forty-seven to fifty millions for wages. The resulting profit was therefore £52,000,000. The war bonus added £55,000,000 to the wages bill, the estimated cost of the eight-hours' day, in operation since February 1, is £25,000,000, and the fresh concessions now being offered to the workers in order to avert further trouble will add another £10,000,000. This is an increase of £90,000,000 in wages compared with the pre-war cost, and makes the total wages bill £140,000,000, or more than the entire gross revenue of the railways in 1913, without any allowance for the other branches of expenditure—coal, materials.', etc. The expenses outside wages in 1913 came to about £40,000,000, of which locomotive running expenses accounted for £18,000,000. The railway returns do not give the cost of the coal consumed for locomotive purposes, hut the quantity was 13,577,000 tons in 1918. Since then coal has more than doubled in price, and, as it furnishes 'a big proportion of the expenses in the locomotive department, it is plain that working costs, apart from wages, have also risen very substantially. At a moderate estimate, indeed, it would seem that when the latest concessions are tak6n into account the cos.t of working the railways of the United Kingdom will be approximately 200 millions per annum, as compared with S7 millions in 1913. In addition, for two years after the signing of peace the prewar net revenue is guaranteed to the companies, which adds another £50,000,000 to the liabilities of the Govfltnment, so that tomehow or other the railways have got to furnish 250 millions. How such an amount can be squeezed out of them is a problem to be approached in fear and trembling, for it is clear that any further substantial rise in passenger rates will make travelling by rail an unfashionable luxury, and any serious increase in goods rates must have a very baneful effect on our industries one and ali. It looks as though the railways will have to be run at a big lots, which will have to be made good by the taxpayer, even if nationalisation, or some other method of securing unification of control should I result in very big economies in working-

Then there ia the coal situation. It is not altogether clear what the cost of the concession the Government it' prepared to make to the miners will be, but the broad facts are these. The increase in wages alone is put at £30,000,000, and the reduction in working houra is estimated to cost £13,000,000 for the half-year beginning in July. Consequently, for a full year,, the latter will come to £26,000,000. A further sum of £9,000,000 has to be added for the lowering of the export price of coal if we are to retain our foreign markets. Thus we have a total increase of £65,000,000 in the cost of production as against an estimated profit of £39,000,000 for 1918. The owners are apparently to be guaranteed a profit of la 2d per ton, though whether that includes royalties seems doubtful. The owners' profits will absorb about 15 million pounds, so, basing calculations on the 1918 estimated profits of 39 millions, we have left for solution the problem of how to make 24 million pounds cover a cost of production of 65 millions. Even with the price of coal maintained at its present level, which is, roughly speaking, double ita pre-war figure, this means that at least 40 millions a year must be found in order to fulfil the Government's pledge to the miners under the Sankey Report. Economies in working our mines can, no doubt, be effected, but a saving of 40 millions per annum would be equal to about 3s 4d per ton on the coal won in 1918, and that we know is an impossible reduction in mining costs. The bulk of the 40 millions must therefore come out of the taxpayers' pockets. With coal a prime factor in armost every industry, the position is one for very serious contemplation. Not only ia Great Britain's export coal trade likely to suffer, but high-priced coal must hamper very gravely all our manufacturers in their efforts to build up agaitt the export trade which means so tmuch'to the-Old Country.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TDN19190614.2.83

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Taranaki Daily News, 14 June 1919, Page 11

Word count
Tapeke kupu
901

PRICE OF INDUSTRIAL PEACE. Taranaki Daily News, 14 June 1919, Page 11

PRICE OF INDUSTRIAL PEACE. Taranaki Daily News, 14 June 1919, Page 11

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