THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, MARCH 1, 1927. WORK AND WAGES.

Wairarapa Age, 1 March 1927, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, MARCH 1, 1927. WORK AND WAGES.

It is agreed by all who have given any thought to the matter that special efforts are likely to bo called for during the coming winter to provide work for the unemployed. Anticipations of this kind are sometimes in part; falsified, but it seems to much to hope that the Dominion will escape more or less serious troubles of unemployment before next spring. That work must be provided for those who are unable to find it for themselves goes, of course, without saying, but it is very necessary that whatever measures of relief are attempted should be well planned and organised. Tjiere sholild be no question of inventing jobs merely in order that an excuse may be found for paying l wages. A controversial question that always crops up in connection with the relief of unemployment relates to the rate of wages to be paid. The Labour Party invariably raises a cry that no man must be asked to work, on relief works or any other kind of works, at less than award rates. In the conditions that arise in periods of unemployment, this cry amounts to nothing else than a demand that wages should be paid in some cases, not for work done, but as a matter of charity. Much of the work that can be offered on such occasions necessarily is in the nature of rough labouring. Many of the men who find themselves out of employment, at such times, particularly those accustomed to light occupations, are illlit ted to earn wages at labouring work. It is surely better that men should be permitted to earn a living at labouring work than that they should be required to demand the full award wages that some of them are incapable of earning. Labour Party spokesmen, however, will hear nothing of such an argument.

The difficulty thus raised possibly might be got over to some extent by the institution, on public works and other undertakings, of a system of small contracts ■which would permit the application of the principle of payment by results. Unless some such arrangement is made, the problem of coping with and relieving -whatever unemployment has to be dealt with next winter certainly will bo seriously complicated. In the present state of farming industry and in the conditions that rule throughout the Dominion generally, the Government and other authorities are bound to seek adequate returns even on expenditure that is made primarily with the object of relieving unemployment. It is the more necessary to take this aspect of the case into consideration since the ro®t cause of such unemployment as exists or threatens to arise is the difficulty of obtaining payable returns on money invested in industry. In the extent to which high money wages and working costs are checking the expansion of industry, they are definitely causing unemployment. Much as this state of affairs calls for a remedy, it cannot be remedied at short notice, bait it should be kept in mind even in. devising measures of the moment to relieve unemployment.