WAGE POLICY

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25737, 24 February 1949, Page 2

WAGE POLICY

Sir,—“Cost Department” apparently has something yet to learn. Wage increases are a big factor in growing material and overhead costs and with price adjustments to cover direct wage increases and ensure profits, wages must necessarily always be chasing prices. Also, as wage workers and dependants constitute the majority of consumers, there must be a gap between total purchasing power and total prices. This breeds unsold surpluses and trade depression with unemployment. Edward Bellamy illustrates this point in his unique little Parable of the Water Tank. A scholarly contribution to the subject has been made by the present British Minister of Food, John Strachey, in his book “The Nature of Capitalist Crises.” The New Zealand Price Tribunal serves helpfully in preventing runaway price inflation; but the method is no solution to one of the difficulties of capitalist commercialism.—Yours, etc.. A.H.S. February 20, 1949.

Sir. —According to “Cost Department” the Price Investigation Tribunal stabilised profits, prices, and wages. Since when and how? What has it done to'alleviate the burden of post-war annual wage-pegging and the uninterrupted rise in prices? As an average wage £6 was insufficient m 1947. and prices were well fixed to make £7 meagre in 1948. For instance. neither the Price Tribunal nor the Fair Rents Act has prevented the housing racket. The minimum rentage has risen to £4 weekly; and £7, and even £9, is being charged for furnished dwellings. We are told that the public would provide for increased wages by more production; yet production has increased tremendously while consumers power decreases. The facts speak for themselves. Those who own the means of production rake in huge profits, the workers remain wage-slaves. The demand for economic equality is ever justifiable.— Yours, etc..

PROGRESS. February 20. 1949.