Where the Good Die Young.

Grey River Argus, 4 August 1925, Page 2

Where the Good Die Young.

We must either reduce production or increase day to day consumption. It is a crime against humanity to reduce production so long as there are people who require more goods. If we are to increase their real purchasing power we must increase their wages without allowing prices to rise, or we must reduce prices without allowing wages to fall. Liberalism can find no solution for that problem. The solution cannot be found within competitive Capitalism. In the competitive system no employer can pay substantially higher wages than are paid by his rival, whether that Yival be across the seas or across the street, without finding himself ousted from the market because of the higher costs of his worshop. Ultimately, if he persists in his laudable policy, he will be driven out of business. As I have repeatedly stated, it is a system in which the good die young.

A general increase in the purchasing power of the people can be brought about only through national organisation. It is true that a national trust could accomplish it, but no nation in its senses would put itself in the power of ,su<;h an organisation. The power would.be greater than that wiehled by any ruler in the most primitive, despotic days.

Uiider this system Of a national pool, nationally controlled (which might in mir.wase become an Empire pool), injlusfries that are now- neglected, because they provide no private profit could be worked to the national benefit ns part of a national scheme. This national pool of resources in men, materials, and . knowledge is Socialism, and nothing else is Socialism.—Rt Hon John Wheatley, M.P., “New..Leader,-” England.