A NON-EXISTENT GOAL

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 284, 26 August 1940, Page 6

A NON-EXISTENT GOAL

All who regard the organized railwaymen as a body of responsible citizens will agree with the Prime Minister’s refusal to accept the Otahuhu resolutions as representing the considered opinions of 1000 men—let alone a majority of railway workers. It is much more likely, as Mr. Fraser has suggested, that the demands for a wage increase of 10/- a week . and for governmental protection against future increases in living costs, as well as for the “conscription” of all profits and all incomes above £5OO a year, and the abolition of the National War Cabinet, have emanated from “a small group of irresponsibles or worse. Workers, whoever they may be, who give credence to arguments of the kind which so obviously have been used at the Otahuhu meeting are searchers for some Utopia in which wages and purchasing power bear no relation to national production and national economy. There is no such goal. It is impossible to increase wages and yet hold the cost of living stationary, without imperilling the security of every worker by undermining the industrial economy of the country. It is equally impossible to impose arbitrary wage increases without calling for an equivalent increase in productive output, and yet expect prices to remain unaffected. In a recently-published pamphlet the Minister of Finance, Mr. Nash, touches on. the unalterable economic law which debars any community or any individual from getting something for nothing. In referring to the fallacious notion, that the Government if it so wishes can safely create its own unlimited credit through the Reserve Bank, Mr. Nash says:

; If we take from the Reserve Bank large sums of money, and just throw the money into the purchasing pool without getting commodities in return, then we will damage the economy of this country to a greater extent than it has ever been damaged before, and in addition we will cause untold hardship and suffering to a very large section of the community including wage and salary earners and those on small fixed incomes. . . .” This truth in respect of the creation of credits applies with equal force to wages. If large additional sums in wages are “thrown into die purchasing pool” in the absence of increased quantities of goods available for purchase, prices must soar. If prices are forcibly held down, still without increased productive turnover, industry must run short of the wherewithal to pay wages, namely, the returns from the sale of goods produced. The Government is not entirely helpless in the face of demands for some check to the rising cost of living. An effective way. is open. A general increase in productive effort which will balance the increased national wages bill by an increased output of goods and services would have a steadying effect on living costs. Are those who claim to represent various bodies of workers prepared for this sound and only means of meeting the position? Is the Government prepared thus to demonstrate its courage in support of the principle enunciated by the Minister of Finance? Avoidance of the economic danger facing wage workers today—the inexorable fall in the purchasing power of the money they receive—is only possible by an increase in output—hours per week. The absurdity of demands of the type voiced in Otahuhu lies not so much in their extravagance as in the fact that it is the attitude of irresponsibles and shortsighted union leaders which today is preventing a busy and businesslike assault on living costs by the combined national forces of industry and industrial labour.