WORKING TOGETHER

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 289, 5 September 1945, Page 6

WORKING TOGETHER

At a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce during the week two very interesting addresses were given on the relationship between employers and employees. The views expressed by Mr. J. McDonald, for some years a trade union secretary at the Hutt railway workshops, were of particular interest because of his frank statement that “both sides knew they must increase .production because there was no other wav of improving the standard of Jiving.” For a long time it has been urged in these columns that national post-war policy must be aimed, primarily, at an increase of production. The argument can be stated succinctly by applying to this country what the London Economist placed at the head of a constructive “policy for wealth” in the post-war years. It said: For the community, and for many years to come, the size of the cake of the national output is certainly as important as, and probably far more important than,' any questions about the size of the various slices. Neither full employment nor social security will be accounted successful unless they cau be combined with a rising standard of output.

This view has been accepted by people of all political opinions in Great Britain. One of the members of the new Government used almost the same words when delivering an address, and the spokesman for the General Council of the Trades Union Congress last year said that the unions inust aim at increasing output and productivity. Basically this is not a matter for employer and employee alone. The State has an essential part to play. It, and to a large extent it alone, can create the conditions favourable to industrial expansion. Taxation can be at a level which effectively prevents development, by draining away the resources which are necessary for maintaining and increasing capital equipment. This is a point which the employee too often has failed to consider'. As one writer on the'matter has put it: “If profits can be whittled down to such a level as prevents the growth of capital, Labour is more apt to rejoice than complain.” Yet there would have been little industrial expansion had it nol been ■for the fact that much of the profits was ploughed back into industry, creating more and more work and widening the range of employment. The financial policy followed by the British, Canadian and other Governments during the past year or two has been, as, far as possible, to adjust taxation so that those engaged in industry might make preparations for the change-back to peacetime conditions. The British refund of part of the wartime excess profits tax is conditioned by the direction that the money must be used in the business or industry. The aim of any policy of increased production is the maintenance of the national income at the highest possible level. The. last six years have seen the indebtedness of the country increasepapidly, and there arc factors that make its further growth likely, though probably at a decreased pace. That means the diversion, through taxation, of a larger share of the national income. The only way to keep that ratio down is by keeping the national income up. A rapid increase in the total output of the whole community, it has been well said, is most necessary to enable the nation to carry the burdens it has assumed. That calls for a combined effort, and no suggestion yet made—no plans have been advanced—holds out a better prospect of benefit for all sections of the community.