TRADE CRISIS

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 17, 14 October 1927, Page 10

TRADE CRISIS

REAL CAUSE OF LOW PRICES

EFFECT OF ENGLISH STRIKES

“Employers in New Zealand should vongratulate themselves that during the last twelve months they have passed through a sharp trade crisis without undue losses,” declared the Hon. T. S. Weston, M.L.C., president of the New Zealand Employers’ Federation, at the annual meeting of that body in Wellington yesterday. “Nothing which we have had to face was unforeseen, and warning had been given in due time,” proceeded Mr. Weston. “The shipping strike and the English coal strike had exactly the disastrous results which were predicted at the time of their occurrence. This is not spoken in bitterness, but it is just as well that people in New Zealand should come to appreciate the evil results to every one of industrial disturbances. The general public are too ready to forget and forgive, and hence do not learn from experience to regulate their future conduct. Public opinion clearly and promptly expressed is the best preserver of the peace. Probably the only satisfactory result to England of the coal strike has been the growth of the movement towards cordial co-operation in industry between capital, management, and labour. If the farmer will only grip firmly and clearly the truth that the drop in prices of his produce during the last 18 months was due to a very great extent to the two strikes above-mention-ed—if the general public will also realise that the unemployment of the last six months was thereby much accentuated—this Dominion will set its face determinedly against similar happenings in future, and give short shrift to those responsible therefor. It is only in this way that fhe extremist on both sides will be frowned down and fail to win support.”