ROAD TO HIGH WAGES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 29 June 1927, Page 18

ROAD TO HIGH WAGES.

MORE CO-OPERATION. AIR. SNOWDEN’S PLEA,

Mr Philip Snowden, M.P., Chancellor of the Exchequer ill the Labour Government, at a luncheon speech, made a powerful plea to employers and workmen to get together and consider the industrial situation, to abandon their old udeas. and pool their brains and energies. He wias speaking at a luncheon given by the American Chamber of Commerce in London, at the Hotel Cecil, to Mr. Arthur. Austin and Mr. W. Francis Lloyd, whose publication, “The Secret of High. Wages,attracted widespread attention.

Air. Snowden, who, followed Air Austin, .said the importance of the (.subject which had been placed before them could not 'be exaggerated. He was inclined t O, think that we m this country at the present time were paissing out of the old industrial traditions and emerging into a new industrial era. “The method* which have been so suoeasisful in the last hundred years have exhausted themselves,” dec I a.red Air Snoiwde'n.

“I can remember that the general attitude of employers thirty years jago in this country wars tbits: That- if a workman out of his practical experience made -soune suggestion for the improvement -olf methods of production he was told that ho wag paid, not to think, hut to work. An (attitude of

I that .sort, of course, is fatal to tlie pro- ! grass of industry. “And the trade union methods — many of them quite indefensible, either on economic or moral grounds—can be easily explained by the experience of workmen in the past, because they knew that the larger their output, the | more energy they put forth, did not accrue in advantage to themselves, but simply went to iincrease the profits of the employer. EFFICIENCY AND HIGH WAGES. “The trade union idea in the past—and to a very Jljraat extent to-day—• has been one of antagonism to the employers. Now we have' got to change that, and we have gelt to get Hie workmen to realise that they are partners m industry, and that the depression of industry hits them probably more hardly than it hits the employers. And we have got to realise that any progressive expansion of industry will accrue proportionately to their benefit. “I would l;ke to see, therefore, the trade union policy changed in this respect, that the trade unions would not be merely concerned, regardless of the condition of industry, in getting the highest, possible wages they can screw out of industry, but rather helping to make industry thoroughly efficient, so that the .most will be there out of which the highest wages can be paid.” For thirty years lie had been pointing out that American captains of industry had realised what economists called the theory and the doctrine of high wages. liiitoii employers of labour were far behind in realising that. They could not have a higher consumption unless they Iliad a higher purchasing power, and if they got a high purchasing power they got a high, consumption, and, of course, a high production.