THE VALUE OF WAGES.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 May 1921, Page 3

THE VALUE OF WAGES.

y A STUDY IN SOCIAL ECONOMICS. (Contributed by the N.Z. Welfare League.) A great many Trade Unionists of today consider the question of wageu as solely one of how much money the wage earners will get for their toil. The issues of the real value of the money received and the value in the use it is put to, are but too often overlooked. The leaders of workers’ unions in New Zealand seemed to understand that wages held a direct relation to purchasing power when they were 'urging increased pay on the ground of the increasing cost of living. What are we to think when we now find, unions demanding increased pay at the same time as falling prices. Increased pay and falling prices together can in general have only the one effect, that of crippling industry and creating unemployment. It would be well if the trade Unionists considered the matter as to whether it is wise for them to .press demands which may have such results in store for members of their own class. Much of the industrial trouble in our time is due to neglect of the workers to study the question of wage values. For the most part their unions are Oliver Twist institutions engaged in calling “More, More,” and doing little else. How to spend wages in -order to increase the value is an art that ought to receive a good deal more attention amongst our population. We have been informed in many quarters that a very large proportion of the consuming pqblic value commodities according to the prices charged instead of estimating the value on quality or usefulness. Instances have ■been quoted to us where shop-keepers find itrmpossible to sell particular articles until they had raised the price of same. This lack of any discrimination is not confined to the idle rich, if it were we might be pleased to see the idlers quickly relieved of their riches. It is more serious when the thousands who toil for wages know so little of the value in wise spending as to cast lightly away what has cost them much effort to secure.

SAVINGS AND WASTING. The London Times of January 5, 1921, records that no fewer than 15,000 workmen in South Wales, chiefly colliers, were last year summoned for non-pay-ment of income tax. One defaulter has been earning wages which on the aggregate amounted to £l,OOO a year. Common earnings were from £7OO to £BOO a year. Not only do these men, receiving these large wages refuse to pay their share of the citizen's burden in the shape of income-tax, but they are receiving free education for their children at the expense of other citizens; they are frequently occupying houses either at no rent at all or a nominal rent, and they receive at a nominal price as much coal as they like to burn. Meanwhile, every industry in the country is handicapped by the increased cost of coal, and partly in consequence of that handicap employment in these industries is diminished.

We do not qudte the above for the purpose of contending that the wages were either too high or not high enough. Our object is to point out that one would expect these miners to have some good reserve of funds to meet any special trial such as a period of depression. If reports are in, the least reliable it seems that now the miners have been out on strike for ju-st three weeks their means are quite depleted, and they are forced to rely on the help of others. It all points to the tendency in good times to spend lavishly and wastefully and let the future take care cf itself.

The doctrine of thrift is being held in, scorn by Socialist advocates to the extent that thousands of workers are constantly indoctrinated with the idea that wages may be idly .spent ana no suffering follow therefrom. During the recent good years we have been inclined to dream that such conditions might last indefinitely. Even at the risk of being misunderstood we urge the national need of training in habits of economy: Want follows waste as night foliows the day. If not for ourselves yet for our children’s sake let us cultivate habits of wise economy and inculcate the true idea that the value of wages depends upon the use these are put to almost as much as the amount received.