THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM.

Auckland Star, Volume XLV, Issue 186, 6 August 1914, Page 4

THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM.

While w e are all rightly impressed by the urgent obligations laid upon us, to do our duty" to England and the Empire, it is impossible to shut our eyes to the obvious fact that the war will prejudicially affect financial, commercial and industrial conditions in all countries, arid in Xew Zealand among the rest. Our export trade must fall off because of the impossibility of finding markets or securing absolute Bafety in transit to them ; while a state of war exists. At the same time the heavy demands for gold created on the other side of the world must necessarily tend to cripple industrial and ■ commercial enterprise here, and reduce the amount of work available for the > wage-earners. Already in Australia the Federal and State Governments and the local authorities are beginning to make provision against this aspect of the crisis, and we observe with satisfaction that similar steps are to be ta*ken here. Without anticipating the action of our own local authorities, we may point out that there is a serious difference of opinion in Australia as to the course that should be followed. On the one hand we have the view represented by the Premier of "Sew South Wales, who suggests that the aiwards of the Wages Boards should be suspended temporarily so that a larger number of workers might get work at reduced wages. On the other hand, there, is the opinion maintained by the Premier of Victoria to the effect that it would be exceedinglj- unwise to interfere with the Wages Board's scales or the Arbitration Court's awards, and that employment for additional wage-earners could 'bo found -at. the present rate of wages by distributing the work, and reducing the number of l .w | or,l"i l ug, ..days, for each. Such an arrangement m frequently carried out in the coal-mining industry- in slack times, when there is not enough work to go round, and tho employers do not want to turn the men adrift; and Wo consider that it ii-.a far more satisfactory method of dealing with the unemployment problem than reducing the rate of waged. On no account, in our opinion, should we tamper with the awards of the Arbitration Court and the terms of payment agTPe.l upon hy tho Conciliation Councils, It is only by slow degrees, after long controversies and very complicated adjustments and compromises, that the existing order of things has been established; and we maintain that it would • be. a rrruvt?. error- in judjrnient to undo tlifs good Work now. aud for the sake of affording relief which may 'bo supplied in other, ways, to run the risk of inflicting irreparable injury upon a system that has conferred inestimable benefits on the whole eo-intrv, and more especially on the workers themselves.