Mr Savage Twists

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22727, 3 June 1939, Page 14

Mr Savage Twists

Addressing one of Mr Macfarlane’s audiences on Thursday night, the Prime Minister declared that he had been “taken- to task by ‘The “ ‘ Press ’ for saying that to increase purchasing “power you must go to the man with £1 a “ week and give him a rise.” Then Mr Savage repeated it, emphatically, and for our particular benefit, but in the revised form, “ Buying power “ is the foundation of trade, both internal and “ external.” We have, as he suggested, “ taken “that down and analysed it.” The result of the analysis is, of course, that Mr Savage is cheating himself with words. The original statement is a fallacy. Purchasing power* is npt necessarily increased by raising money wages: Mr Savage I ad his colleagues have

lately been trying to insinuate this very truth into trade union heads. But the second statement, “Buying power is the foundation of “trade,” is not the same statement in. other words; it is a different statement. You may pay a man 30s instead of £l, and he may be no better off; but if you increase his buying power—that is, if you increase the quantity or improve, the quality of goods he can buy with £l—then he is richer. We congratulated Mr Savage too soon on having grasped and expressed, firmly and clearly, the difference between real and nominal wages. Ideas twist in his mind and words twist on his tongue. It is not the gift of a safe leader.