INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 7, 9 January 1937, Page 8

INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES.

The reply made by Mr. C. H. MeQmfi president of the Auckland Farmers' Union, to the Minister of Labour's remarks concerning farm labour is typical of what we may soon expect from many other lines of industry. Each feels itself more or less pinched and as labour conditions, prices and costs impinge upon profits. This is the question of share, and its answer and determination may wreck the present Administration, or even representative government itself. It h in some measure distinct from the problems of land and credit ownership, these latter beirrr more clearly defined and understood. But when it comes to the conditions and hotira of labour, the rate of money wages, the risk of responsibility or paying wages compared with the freedom of recipients, the monotony of some occupations (including farming) M compared with other occupations, these are the things that cause trouble and discoplent. The remedy. T believe, lies in a wider outlook •on life and industry even while presenting * claim for more advantages. The division of labour is becoming more and more intensive, and it is only by this comnrehensivc outlook that we shall escape the di-conioni that lies in the fog of parochialism. Cuming to practical details. I note that trades union secretaries are anxious to enforce the 10.">1 rates of payment, and while it i< unfair for -ome employers to evade the law. I would strongly emphasise tlie necessity for promoting a liarmonitJlis atmosphere and a sincere cfTor? by all concerned to maintain a high volume of output, for it is the volume of Production that constitutes the real ware fund. Let ns realise that we are in a transition period, biought upon us by the increase of knowledge and invention more than bv partv politics. The more general study of industrial stati-ite (especially those of volume) will be an in this direction during 1037. K.N'.D.