WAGES QUESTION

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 4575, 28 April 1922, Page 3

WAGES QUESTION

DISCUSSED BEFORE ARBITRATION COURT. CASE FOR EMPLOYERS. (Per Press Association.) Wellington, April 26. - The Arbitration Court to-day commenced the bearing of the employers and employees’ views on the Court’s pronouncement regarding wages reduction. Mr Bishop, for tho employers, summarised his arguments as follows: (1) There is undoubtedly most urgent need to-day for readjustment of wages and prices. The need is not restricted to Now Zealand, but is world-wide, and we cannot blind ourselves to the ■experience of other countries. Apart from the effect we must feel from the world situation, tho position of our primary industries to-day is such as to call for immediate remedy, and reaction upon our secondary industries has already become most serious; (2) It has been abundantly proved that we can no longer adjust wages to the cost of living regardless of the enenomic situation, and Parliament lies recognised this fact by making it mandatory that in and adjustment of wages, the economic and financial conditions shall he given due consideration. (3) The worker is not being asked to bear an undue share of tho sacrifice. The employers have been losing for the last year, are losing to-day, and are prepared to continue to lose by passing on to the public the benefit of wage reductions if by so doing they arc establishing their business and increasing the volume of their trade. (4) The effect of adequate wage reduction will be increased employment and increase in the total wages bill, and therefore the purchasing power in circulation. The elfect of inadequate reduction will bo prolongation of the period of lialftimo employment, continuation of tho stagnation of all development work, and a maintenance of high prices. (5) Ultimately the situation will bring its own cure, and competition from foreign countries will force down our prices of manufactured goods. The prices of our primary products must fall lower than they arc to-day. ' The result will bo unemployment to such an extent that the average wages of the community will b« reduced perforce, and the whole arbitration system will fail. Is it not better and wiser to face the situation boldly to-dav undergo an operation and suffer initial pain followed by a speedy recovery, rather than wait lor the sickness to develop still further and then suffer a very long drawn-out convalescence; (6) Tiie New Zealand workers are the best off in the world to-day, and by making a brief sacrifice ' they can maintain that position. Is the Court going to call upon them to face the situation, or is it going to permit them to drift into the conditions prevailing in other countries? What is the position in Australia to-day? Copper mines are idle in nearly all States. The Broken Hill miners are practically all idle, and the iron and steel works at Lithgow and Newcastle have closed down. Hear wliat the senior British Trade Commissioner for Australia says on the subject: ‘/The most serious feature in the economic situation is the refusal of the leaders of organised Labour to permit any wage reduction to meet the siutalion caused by lowering the cost 0 fproduction in other countries. The result is creeping paralysis in manufacturing industries, which, although protected by a high tariff, are subject to overseas, competition. “That is only one aspect of the case, and to adopt it to New Zealand we must go further and say that we cannot protect secondary industries by a high tariff, because if we do we are only increasing the burden of taxation on our primary producers; (7) I wish also to emphasise this point most strongly : If the Court makes a substantial general order, it hits everyone alike at the same moment, and produces the maximum benefit in return, but if the Court makes quite an inadequate general order the effect will be that the workers in some trades will be fully employer, and will enjoy continuance of high wages, whilethe workers in other trados-y will receive high nominal wages but small actual wages, because they will have only part time employment. The difficulties of the poorly paid man will be, aggravated, because ho will have to pay high prices for the products of his betterpaid fellow-workers, and to put a concrete case, the workers in the iron trade will continue to work half-time, as they arc doing to-day. Their cost of living will be kept up, because, in the woollen trade, owing to absence of competition, prices and wages have not been reduced. There are two ways in which the present situation may he faced, and only two. 0110 is ignoring all the necessities of the case, "and tho lessons that others have learned by bitter experience to endeavour to maintain a false standard of wages and prices, and as a result to suffer creeping paralysis in all our industries, and tho other is to grasp our nettle, to join hands ill the necessary initial sacrifice, and so get back to 'a sound economical basis in our business and hasten a return to prosperity. The question for this Court to decide is which of the two courses wo are to adopt. Evidenco is being taken.