LABOUR OPPOSITION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 127, 1 June 1931, Page 8

LABOUR OPPOSITION.

WAGES AND PROSPERITY. it LEEWAY TO MAKE UP." COMMENT BY MR. MONTEITH. "The Legislature instructed the Court to take the financial and economic position into consideration, and it is clear that we are suffering, but I do not think it reasonable to fix a wage less than the 1914 standard, nor such a wage that ignores the hardship cast on the worker of increased casual employment," comments Mr. A. L. Monteith, employees' representative in the course of an opinion dissenting from the observations of both his Honor and Mr. Prime. "The present world depression," added Mr. Monteith, "in my opinion is caused by the mal-distribution of national income. Increased production has taken place, but that only becomes an advantage if it is reflected in a higher standard of living, which means

a "corresponding expanding market for goods supplied. Instead of this, wealth production has been absorbed bycapital expenditure which was not justified, and the writing up of the value of existing capital." Mr. Monteith said that to-day all known markets were fully supplied, and all nations were pursuing a policy of supplying internal wants as far as possible. In addition, the policy of getting back to the gold standard had had the effect of depreciated goods and of appreciated money, so that all efforts to pay increased money interest by increased production only added to the dverstocked market and resulted in falling price levels. New Zealand had had a very prosperous time, but award rates of pay did not reflect that prosperity, and the worker had a lot of leeway to make up. Mr. Monteith declared that overcapitalisation of industry was one of the greatest factors in the industrial trouble of our time, and that relief for the farmers was to be secured from mortgages and interest. That would assist them to again become possessed of a real purchasing power, but we ■should not take from one needy class to give to another needy class. The lot of the general labourer was certainly that of a needy person, for if he secured full time he received only £4 0/8, but, being on an hourly wage, he received less. On a 10 per cent reduction he would have, roughly, the following amounts to spend:—Food, £1 4/11; clothing, 10/1; rent, 14/10; fuel and

light, 3/9; miscellaneous expenditure, 19/. It might happen that any one item might be exceeded, in which case mother item must be reduced. Those figures were based on a full week's employment. The idea of the 10 to 20 per cent given by some Arbitration Courts in Australia was to give the worker the full weekly rate; in other words, to give some compensation for the casualness of the employment. This was an important difference in principle, and made a great difference in the lot of the general labourer here and elsewhere.