SONUS REDUCTION

Evening Star, Issue 17955, 28 April 1922, Page 7

SONUS REDUCTION

:— DEM ADVOCATE'S ADDRESS. LAND SPECULATORS BLAMED. During yesterday's sitting of the, Arbi-tral-ion Court at Wellington to boar nrr-n----nuuit on bonus reduction Mr T. IJloodworth addressed the court on behalf of tbo workers., He said it was reimirkable that no retailers bad been called in evidence by the employers. The fact wna tbo retailers were adversely affected by tho reduction in the spending power of the workers. What had affected the farmers’ position was the reduced purchasing power of the European purchasers. Where improvement was needed here was in management. After* traversing tho question at some length, Mr liloodworth concluded by stating that the demand for reductions in wages ami salaries came largely from land speculators, men who only by an abuse of language could bo catted bona tide farmers. Enormous profits had 'been made by these land speculators. When employers and producers made an extra profit one year they did not immediately raise wages. Why, then, should wages ho reduced at the first intimation of reduced profits? Before wages wore reduced the .Legislature should call upon all those clamoring for a reduction to produce all the requisite documents to show what happened to tho profits they made during the good years—years in which they did not ask that wages should ho what the industry could hear. It was not right to reduce wages because a few merchants and land speculators got nipped by overspeculation, Thev bad never intended to share their profits with the, workers. Why, then, should the workers he, asked to bear their losses? To keep wages at tho present level would leach the speculator a lesson. It would also tend to weed out the inefficient employer, who, from a strictly economic point of view, tended to depress yvages and increase prices, for prices depended upon tho cord, of production by the most inefficient producer in the industry. To make the workers’ wages depend upon the capacity of the most inefficient and foolish was to give tho employer, and deny tho worker,' advantages which accrued from progress, science, and industry. “ Such are the reasons,” he said, “ why «'c oppose any reduction in the rates of remuneration at the present time, and ask the court to order the present minimum rates to continue for at least a further six months.”