The Press Friday, February 14, 1930. Work and Wages.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19853, 14 February 1930, Page 8

The Press Friday, February 14, 1930. Work and Wages.

A short message from Melbourne today reports a statement by Mr Justice Beeby in the Arbitration Court, warning the trade unions that a " general "reconstruction of Australia was in- " evitable," and that lower wages were almost certain. He turns for his reasons to the fall in export commodities and to his belief that the present depression is "not temporary, but the "result of post-war inflation." It is undeniable that reconstruction is necessary, and reconstruction would be incomplete without some adjustment in the nominal value of wages, though their real value need be no less and might easily be' more; but it is questionable whether Australia is yet ready to face the inevitable. While the cumulative effects of defying the economic obligations of a country that lives by exporting will compel her to revise her policy in the end, there is still a greater likelihood of delay than of immediate action. In the first place, the present Commonwealth Government is deeply committed to higher tariffs, and Mr Theodore's first Budget unhesitatingly built them up. It is a little too soon yet to judge the effect of the increases; but it will be surprising if history does not repeat itself, and not at all surprising if it repeats itself more emphatically and warningly. The curious thing about Australian tariff defences, designed to exclude imports, is that they have not been exclusive. On February 11th, for example, it was reported from Canberra that the half-yearly trade figures disclosed a " tremendous decrease in " the value of exports, and an increase "in imports," and a more heavily adverse trade balance than in 1925. Imports exceeded exports by more than £16,000,000, in spite of an export of gold valued at £9,500,000. But prohibitive tariffs that do not prohibit, or defensive tariffs that do not defend, are not resultleßs; they have at least the effect of lifting prices and costs, including wages, higher and higher. And the Arbitration Court in Australia has operated solely as a machine registering and confirming successive advances in Wages- to the new . levels set by the advancing cost o£ living. This process was bluntly described by the English Economic Mission, which toured Australia and issued its report towards the middle of last year.

The combined operation of the tariff and the Arbitration Acts has raised costs to a level which has laid an excessive and even dangerous load upon the unsheltered industries. And again: "We have felt much force in the oftrepeated complaint that successive increases is the tariff, which affects priceß and the cost of living, following upon, •or being followed by, successive advances in the cost of labour as the result of decisions under the Arbitration Acts, have involved Australia in a vicious circle of ever ascending costs and prices, and that this condition of affairs is crippling Australia's progress and her power of supporting increased population.

Thorough-going reconstruction, of course, is impossible without tariff revision on a sager basis, which the pamphlet by Sir George Julius, recently commented on'and abridged in The Press, convincingly described; but even where the, beginning of wisdom might have been found in a move towards a, wage level that industry could better support, with the hope of more regular employment, and the move was suggested, the only' outcome has been bitter industrial strife, the last state of industry being necessarily worse than the first. The New South Wales coal strike is an illustration of this, the men being asked to bear ninepence out of the five shillings reduction in the tonprice of coal essential to revive the industry. It is very doubtful, therefore, whether Mr Justice Beeby's warning will be answered in any terms but those of execratjpn. But if he were to lose his senses and proclaim the Piddington Commission's "reasonable "minimum wage " —£s 17s od—he would n °t be laughed at but lauded. It must have been forgotten by now that, the statisticians showed that the national income, shared out, would not yield nearly as much; and, if not forgotten, it could be enthusiastically ignored.