Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1940. PRODUCTION AND WELFARE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 September 1940, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1940. PRODUCTION AND WELFARE.

they bore on the possibility of increasing- production in this country, some of the speeches made at the openingsession of the Economic Conference now sitting- in 'Wellington were combative rather than helpful. There were others, however, in which a decidedly different note was struck. For instance, one of the Federation of Labour representatives, Mr F. P. Walsh, observed that a great deal had been said about the wages workers were receiving, but that they' realised that wages were of no value to them unless they had the commodities to buy. It would appear (he added) that the time was rapidly approaching when there was going to be a shortage of commodities. He believed, in the interests of all, that question should be examined and that the best place to do so would be in committee. “I am pretty certain,” Mr Walsh went on to state, “that the Labour movement is prepared to go on the same basis as the soldier, and that what is over and above that should all go to the State.” He said also that he realised that they would have to accept a reduced standard during the war. In accepting that reduced standard the workers wanted to see the whole of the population bearing an equal sacrifice. While war sacrifices undoubtedly ought to be distributed as equitably as possible, and certainly much more equitably than they are at present, the essential object to be aimed at in doing what is possible to increase production is rather to lessen than to intensify sacrifices. In the extent to which production now deficient can be increased, not only will the war effort of the country be strengthened and supported, but the living standards of the workers will be lowered less than would otherwise be the case. In addition, the expansion of production where it is now deficient would assist materially to correct those maladjustments of our national eeoiiomy which are tending at present to go from bad to worse. More varied and more economical factory production, for example, would do a good deal to amend the state of affairs in which an increasing relative burden of costs is being cast on primary industry. At the Economic Conference, Mr W. Machin (representing the New Zealand Employers’ Federation) said that the primary producers had done well and had increased production, the increase over ten years being, he' believed, about 21 per cent per head of population. However, factory production had not increased per head of population. If it were well directed, an increase in factory production—an increase which the present time in some respects exceptionally favours —might be expected to increase appreciably the available volume of consumers’ goods, and incidentally to lower in some measure the relative working costs of primary industry. There is thus a great deal to be said for the proposal put forward by Mr G. T. Thurston, representing the New Zealand Engineers and Related Trades Union, who suggested that the conference must make a survey of all industries. He did not see any other way of dealing with the question. This is practical advice. A methodical survey of the additional production that might be undertaken in this country would point the way at once to a maximum contribution from current production to the war effort and to the .maintenance, now and later, of the highest possible standard of living for the population of the Dominion. Every reasonable and legitimate means of achieving the volume of production here suggested, whether by the expanded, operation of existing industries or the establishment of new industries or branches of industry, evidently ought to be turned to account. One very important factor that needs to be considered is the limit on hours of labour in factory and other occupations. At present a limited extension of working hours at ordinary rates of pay is being permitted in some instances where special cause for doing so has been shown. In a country faced by an actual shortage of commodities and threatened with more serious dearth, the question of working rather longer hours in order to produce more surely is worth going into from a rather broader standpoint. A survey may be expected to show that there are many branches of industry in this country in which the supply of commodities could be increased, and perhaps cheapened, if a moderate increase in working hours were agreed upon. It is difficult in this matter to agree with the rather pessimistic view expressed by one of the Labour delegates to the Economic Conference, Mr J. Read, who said that: — Two employers in the timber industry had told him that they were getting as much producion on the forty-hour week as they had got previously on the 48-hour week. It did not always follow that increased hours meant increased production. It would be interesting to know what British trade unionists, trade union leaders and Labour representatives in the British Government would have to say about Mr Read’s ideas on the subject of working hours and production. Even in the absence of pronouncements of this kind, it may be perceived that an attempt to establish the forty-hour week in war factories and other vital industries in the United Kingdom would wreck and sabotage the British war effort. No one is likely to suggest that New Zealand workers should agree to work as long hours as their British kinsfolk are working at present. It is not in doubt, however, that a general increase of working hours in New Zealand wherever this would increase the output and supply of useful and necessary commodities would work out with considerable benefit, not least to the workers concerned and their families. This question deserves to be considered on its plain merits and these merits will not be disposed of by talking about the conscription of wealth or any alternative issue. With existing taxation running to as much as 17s 6d in the pound on the higher scale of incomes, and with proposals on foot to tax excess profits one hundred per cent, the conscription of wealth is reasonably well in hand. On the other hand, much potential productive power in New Zealand is at present being wasted.

HITLER’S LATEST EFFORT.

QN or about the day on which he had hoped to address a “Victory Congress” at Nuremberg, Hitler spoke instead in Berlin, at the opening of another winter relief campaign. The speech is significant chiefly in its descent from the tone of confident and particular prediction its author has been accustomed to use and may be summed up as one in which he attempted to make the best of a bad job. It is not, of course, suggested that the battle for Britain has yet reached a conclusion, and it may be about to enter on sterner phases than it has yet witnessed, but there are substantial reasons for believing that in his threats of a hugely multiplied return for all the bombing that. Britain is able to do in Germany Hitler was allowing hatred and malice to sweep him into the region of complete absurdity. It is generally conceded that Germany still has a numerical superiority of aircraft, but against that there is to be set not only the qualitative superiority of the Royal Air Force and its companion formations, demonstrated in the heavily disproportionate losses suffered by the German Air Force in conflicts in which it had every incentive to do its best, but the fact that Britain’s air power resources are expanding at a rate that Germany cannot hope to rival. Much encouragement is to be drawn at the present stage of the war from the barefaced lying to which the Nazi dictatorship has resorted in its reports of the results of air lighting. It must be supposed that this policy of falsehood meantime is tQ some extent serving its ,purpose in Germany and in countries under her domination, and Hitler’s latest, speech must be regarded as attuned to the same base standard. There hangs over the heads of the Fuehrer and his associates, however, the menace ami nemesis of the time when it will no longer be possible to conceal the truth even from the people of Germany. It may be believed, as Mr Wickham Steed said recently, that when the German people discover the truth, as they will, Hitler will suffer a defeat in the field of psychological strategy from which he may not easily recover.