The Grey River Argus WEDNESDAY, June 26, 1946. WIDENING OPPORTUNITY IN NEW ZEALAND

Grey River Argus, 26 June 1946, Page 4

The Grey River Argus WEDNESDAY, June 26, 1946. WIDENING OPPORTUNITY IN NEW ZEALAND

Scarcely any country but has to-day the cry of shortages in supply. Not only is it food, but coal, and manufactures. If there is underlying it all a lack of labour power, no less than economic disorganisation, what has mainly been responsible is rindoubtedly the tremendous loss of life and material, with the unprecedented displacement of workers, resulting from six long years of unexampled warfare. Compared with the rest of the world, New Zealand is exceedingly well off. There arc, however, many who, for various reasons, ignore the fact, and instead try to make out that the Dominion ought to be, not merely so much ahead of other countries as it is, but exactly in the same position as it would have been had there been no war at all. Tn America, Britain, Australia and Canada, to name only a few comparable countries, conditions generally are nowise so good as our’s. The workers are discontented, services arc restricted, and rehabilitation is lagging. Here, however, the only faults beingfound are that recovery is not sufficiently speedy to please, people anxious for larger revenues, and that, with all ablebodied workers in production, there is scope to employ many thousands more workers. That complaint is one traditionally associated, not with depression or stagnation, but with prosperity. If our coal supply is not adequate —and it must be acknowledged a greater output could be used—the reason is not any drop in production, because the output is

now greater than before. The real reason is the very large increase in the demand, not, as in Britain, Australia, or elsewhere, a fall in the output. It surely is better that demand should thus have expanded than that supply should exceed demand. It may be acknowledged, indeed, that in all countries the miners are having their pay and conditions bettered, for the simple reason that otherwise men will no longer toil underground in any country. It is occasionally asserted workers in some industries, such as that of the waterfront, are better paid than ever before. If so, the reason is the same. It is also a fact that, as in Wellington, for instance, the waterfront itself tends to-day to be undersupplied with labour. Employers in those industries where work is hard must reconcile themselves to the fact that in future such employment must be remunerated in proportion to its difficulty and its comparative Jack of attractiveness. In Britain they have begun recruiting youths for the mines, with assurances of a better livelihood, for the simple reason that the pits henceforth cannot be manned in the old casual fashion of drawing on a “pool” of idle labour. Capitalism in its despite, has been Iriven by sheer economic necessity to countenance the provision of such a degree of security for all wage earners as will maintain a labour supply of any sort whatever. As eagerly to-day as ever do capitalists generally look forward to industrial expansion, but some of them pretend otherwise in New Zealand. Their spokesmen say, for instance, “a policy calculated to increase the labour supply for primary producers should ! be followed,” meaning, if anything at all, that industrial expansion should not he encouraged. Hitherto New Zealand has admittedly been per capita the greatest exporter of primary products, but must recognise now the determined endeavour of Britain, its chief market, to become as independent as possible of such imports as have gone from New Zealand. Our policy also must be one of selfreliance, and this means complementary production in the way of manufactures. There is no other way of maintaining a larger population. It would be impossible to increase secondary industries were there not people anxious for the. opportunity of engaging in them, so that the idea is simply one to develop private enterprise. Our farmers will be the better served to the extent that they can find a better market within New Zealand. Nobody need by dumbfounded when the local Opposition press says that the Government might try to settle six thousand ex-servicemen next year on the land, so as to lend weight to the contention that they would absorb the labour on which other farmers rely. The idea is not to settle so many immediately, but only a quarter of that number in the coming year. Indeed, the complainant is not at all sure about the number, as the project is among ones described as “remote”. The point, overlooked is simply that there is not given even a remote definition of a positive policy to increase the labour supply for primary producers. The only suggestion is the negative one that new industries shall not be fostered. New Zealand tried out that particular policy for a lifetime, and remained what used to be called an antipodean farm for the Old Country. Those who started it as such had a colonising proviso for a sufficient labour supply. They ordained that those who came for this purpose should get low pay so that they shou not start too soon on their own account. But a policy colculated to increase the supply of labour to-day must be a great deal different to that one.