PESSIMISTS REBUKED.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 39, 15 February 1929, Page 6

PESSIMISTS REBUKED.

The real remuneration of the worker in Denmark and Britain is twice that of the corresponding operative in Russia, Belgium, Austria, Italy and Poland (says a recent dispatch from London to the "Christian Science Monitor"). Authoritative figures now published show that, taking the amount of real wages in London at 100, that In Copenhagen is 108, Stockholm 88, Amsterdam 85, Berlin 71, Paris 56, Madrid 54, Moscow 50, Milan and Brussels 49, Prague 47 Vienna 45, Reval 44, Rome 43 and Warsaw 40.

Theee figures lend point to a statement made by Walter Citrine, secretary of the Trade Union Congress, an organisation which claims to represent 4,500,000 workers in Britain. Writing in the "Industrial Review," Mr. Citrine "More than once recently we have had illustrations of the tendency in Labour propaganda to paint in very sombre colours the conditions of the working class. Neither the wisdom nor the truthfulness of the argument that the position of the workers is steadily deteriorating can commend itself to trade unionists. It is certainly not good from the trade union point of view to go on making this assertion, for it reflects upon the capacity of the trade unions to protect the standards and conditions of their members. Nor can the assertion be proved. On the contrary, thero i? nothing more impressive in the story of the la*t seven years of terrible economic depression than the success of the trade unions in maintaining ihc standards of working Hass life and labour, liver a- longer period the beneficial effects of trade mriqpriwt mm rtfll nor* eonepicunu. , '