Wages And Policy

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31726, 9 July 1968, Page 12

Wages And Policy

Sir.—One looks in vain for principled policy statements on the appropriate place of wages and salaries as part of a coherent social programme in our • fast-eroding Welfare State, 1968 model. The absence of such statements leaves the public without guide lines or criteria enabling them to evaluate widely conflicting statements. What are fair minimum wages? What are fair and equitable relative wages and salaries up, down, and across the board? Who knows? Who is prepared to say? There appears to be no such thing as a coherent wages policy based on widely understood and accepted criteria in New Zealand today, and to crystallise existing standard and inequalities’ is merely an attempt to do justice in an ethical and moral vacuum. Expediency is a poor substitute for principle. On economic and social grounds the present shambles is long overdue for complete overhaul. Here, surely, is a fruitful field. for study by young economists and social scientists in our universities. —Yours, etc., H. G. KILPATRICK. July 7, 1968.