THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY AUGUST 1, 1908. MISSING THE POINT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9156, 1 August 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY AUGUST 1, 1908. MISSING THE POINT.

Mr G. T. Booth, head of the firm of Booth and McDonald, implementmakers, made the other night in Christchurch, a very decided speech, and one which, we fear, must be regarded a3 being of a contemptible character. A Wellington paper headed a telegram, referring to the speech in question, "Going Slow," but it would have been more appropriate had it presented, the message to its readers under the title "Missing the Point," for Mr Booth not only failed to make any point out, of his figures, although he did use certain figures to cloak a wretched accusation, but he missed most obviously a point which he might have made, and which, had he seen it, would have probably prevented him from making insinuations against the workers of the Dominion. According to Mr Booth, workmen did not need to strike in any legal sense. They could exert all the pressure they wanted to exert on employers without doing anything of the kind. They had a plan of their own which had

been well understood, and worked for centuries, which was perfectly effective, and would be effective no matter what law might be in existence; and that was the plan of "going slow." This plan, Mr Booth alleged, was worked hi New Zealand, and h. 3 quoted figures in relation to a certain trade which he would not mention, bur. which was by no means an unimpoitant part of the industrial organisation of the Dominion. In 1190 L the hands employed in the trade numbered 4,176, the horse-power used was 1,937, the amount invested in land, buildings, and plant was £455,621, the value of material used was £495,599, paid in wages £361, 150, value of total product £1,062,265, product per man £254 7s 6d. For the year 1905 the following increases had taken place:—•Hands employed 553, horse power 98S, capital invested in land, buildings and plant £208,000, material used £15,000, wages paid £53,411. The increase in the output should have been £140,669 with the additional hands employed; but if there weak included the increase in the amount paid in wages, in the horsepower, and the amount of capital invested, the increase in product should have amounted to £176,485. They would haraly believe him, he thought, when he told them that the actual increase in the product in the year 1905, as compared with 1901, was only £15,310. The product per man fell as between 1901 and 1905 from £254 7s 6d, to £224 17s 3d, a falling off in efficiency of 12 par cent. But nearly the whole increase in the value of the product was accounted for by the increased amount of material used. So that the extra labour and the extra capital invested yielded the employers of the trade the magnificent sum of £440. It was hardly too much to say that for all that expenditure of time and money, and the labour of 553 men, the country gained nothing. Mr Booth concluded bis remarkable statement by adding that he "was not going to say that the arbitration system was solely to blame for that state of affairs, but in so far as it embodied the principle that work was not a thing that a man should engage in cheerfully and manfully, but that it was a hateful necessity upon him for his sins., which was not only justifiable for a man to dodge but creditable to him to do so; if it implied that the mantle of State sanction was to be thrown over meanness, selfishness, and laziness, and weakness, a premium put on inefficiency—then the arbitration system was so far to blame." The point that Mr Booth has so sadly overlooked ia this, that the Dominion is only producing, to a very limited exttnt, the enormous degree of production of which it is capable, and that, while vast sums of public money have been expended, there has not been that expenditure which there ought to have been in the interests of industrial employers and employees. Moreover, the figures submitted meant nothing, although Mr Booth saw in them all sorts of horrible defects in the New Zealand working man. The increase in the cost of living was not even mentioned, and, presumably, thos3 who had the pleasure of hearing the address, were not informed waether the productions of the "certain trada" had been increased in p>ice to the consumer or purchaser. Moreover, they were left in complete ignorance as to whether foreign competition or outside influences had effected the "certain trade." Anyone who makes the insinuations, which Mr Booth has made, against the New Zealand worker, is either absolutely biindel by prejudice, or is completely ignorant of his subject. The true New Zealander is not a crawler, and he is not a loafer. He is atcached to varioU3 pursuits and syoi'ts which render him active and manly. He is unquestionably of a vigorous type —vigorous both at work and at pluy, and he is far t)o cute to b> gulled, even by those who artfully indulge in "flap-doodle" for their own, ends.