PANIC OR PRODUCTION.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 196, 17 August 1920, Page 5

PANIC OR PRODUCTION.

!s — TO REDUCE PRICES. 'I | i A LESSON FROM FRANCE. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. [ In his address at the annual meeting -' of the Wellington Woollen Company to- "' day Mr. W. H. P. Ba»ber said his per- | sonal opinion wias that, excluding a | financial panic—wh'ieh would be a cure, ; but unfortunately worse than the dis- ' ease—the only thing that would reduce i prices wae production- In the wool j combing industry in France normal con- ; ditions were almost entirely restored as i a result of working 24 hours a day in three slrifts. If other branches of trade ■ did the same, as- no doubt they would , in France, it would not be long before - competition would make itself felt. The I tendency in New Zealand was for a : shorter working week, and even now the ! cutting out of Saturday mornings was '■ being used by some employers to attract • workers .regardless of other consequences 'of such a limitation of output. The >] great war started the r'.sing' of prices. , but ho held that labour generally had i power to say When high prices should cease. Not by limiting the output and creating obstacles, but by allowing that • machinery and capital might be em- | ployed to their fullest capacity, so that within a short per'od, without any re- ■ duction of wages, production would ensure competition, and thus bring us back to normal conditions, when supply and demand would settle those economic problems of inflation, whether or not due ' to a superabundance of paper currency. I ________________________