The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1927. WAGES AND PRODUCTION.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 235, 5 October 1927, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1927. WAGES AND PRODUCTION.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance t And the good that we can do.

We have heard a great deal lately from certain quarters about the .harm alleged to have been done by the Arbitration Court and the minimum wage, and the necessity for abolishing either or both of them. It is rather a relief to hear the other side of the case as set forth by the president of the Wellington Manufacturers' Association last night. According to Mr. Campbell, those who think that the interests of producers will be promoted and the prospects of the country improved by cutting wages down are working on entirely wrong lines. He has accepted the relation established in the United States between high wages and high productive power as a valuable object-lesson, and he does not see why the same principle should not apply here. There is no doubt a great deal of force in the American illustration, which many other economic observers besides Mr. Campbell have recently employed. Given a large and secure market, the best results, both for employer and employee, seem to be attained under a system which, by producing on a large scale, minimises initial costs, and by offering the worker the chance of improving his position and increasing his income stimulates him to greater efforts, and thus develops his productive powers. Mr. Campbell is careful to explain that he is not advocating Protection as the one and only cure for industrial depression or unemployment, but he argues that security in the local market is necessary for full production and high wages. And without high wages Mr. Campbell holds that we cannot expect to maintain a high rate of production and to get the best possible results out of the wage-earner. At this point in the discussion Mr. Campbell endeavours to meet the argument so frequently advanced by the employer, that there is no certainty that the wage-earner will respond to the incentive of higher wages by working harder or better. Mr. Campbell answers that quite possibly the worker has failed or declined to do his best hitherto because he believes that there is not an unlimited amount of work to be done, and that if he works to the utmost limit of his powers he may "work himself , out of a job," or, at best, may find that he has benefited his employer without increasing his own gains, The . strength of this feeling, which Mr. I Campbell regards as wrong but logical, has | not been fully realised by the employing class. Mr. Campbell argues that if .you give the worker more inducements to work hard, and the prospect of more continuous employment, lie will respond. This raises another question upon which Mr. Campbell does not touch. The worker's fear of unemployment partly arises from the absence of provision for him when he is out of work. We may take the opportunity to point out again that this country is still Without a permanent system for mitigating the hardship, of unemployment.