The Feilding Star Oroua and Kiwitea Counties' Gazette TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1921 IS THE TENDENCY DOWNWARD?

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 4218, 15 February 1921, Page 2

The Feilding Star Oroua and Kiwitea Counties' Gazette TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1921 IS THE TENDENCY DOWNWARD?

Tiik wish is father to the thought amongst the people generally that the high oust of living is over its apex, and will soon begin to slither down. Some <>f our retailers tell us that there is no mistake about an early dropping of prices. Others say with oijtinl emphasis that there is no possibility of reductions for some time to ooiuo. Hut it is obvious that, with ft shortage of money, both wholesalers mid retailers must unload their sniplus stocks, thus necessitating a reduction of prices. And the over-im-portation that has been so marked during recent months must also have the usual effect of glutting the market—a dropping of prices. With the dropping of the cost of essential articles, there must also conio a reduction in the rale of wages in every avenue of wage-earning. For it is absolutely impossible that the present high rate of wages can continue either out hern in Now Zealand or away over there in the Homeland. It is being made clear in the cabled news of late that in America, where the highest rates of pay have prevailed these many years, the rates are on the down grade. We are told that in some »-al)>s of life American workers are voluntarily accepting reduction. rather than see their factories closed down because the latter can no longer afford to pay the too-high wages. Down in Wellington a proposal in made to reduce the hourly rat'' fur carpenters, and naturally the latter are kicking against the pricks. The young men say that if the city rates aio reduced, they will travel north or to Australia, whore the rates are higher. Wouldn't they bo travelling towards the higher-rnto areas now if j>ueb a. condition prevailed? In Auckland thorn are 88 applications awaiting Ibe local sitting of the Arbitration Court for an increase of bonus instead oi the lower rate award...l. lint with the money market so light as it is to-day. and will continue for months to come, there is no hope ni any increase of bonus oi hourly rale*. If anything, wages must now l»- linn in;.; towards the slid-illg-down scale; and Labour leaders who are strenuously urging workers to strike rather than accept reductions are wilfully blind loaders of the blind. The watersiders who are. relusino; to work overtime are equally foolish. They are short-sighted. They arc of the perverse generation, and cannot, read tho signs of (he times—of the hard times abend, indeed, the only possible v.ay in which the present high wages could bo maintained would bo by more production. Instead of that, hero we ar« approaching the winter season, and the miners of New Zealand have boon going slow, with their output down to ssero, so that the importation of coal from oversea- has bad to be increased in order to keep our wheels of industry going round and to keep tho home /jres burning. This to the everlasting slihm.o of tho miners of a land that has the tinest coal in tho world and more easily and safely mined than in any other country on this earth. It i. marvellous, really, that the masses of the pooplo do not, rise in their wrath and tell tho shirking minors that they must got to work and turn out plenty of coal at a reasonable rate against the cold days of the wintor season.