WORK AND WAGES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXV, Issue 7831, 10 April 1886, Page 5

WORK AND WAGES.

TO THE EMTOB. Sie, —It strikes me that there must have been some mis-print in the signature to ' the letter which appeared in your issue of to-day under the above heading, and that instead of " Colonist" it should have been "Capitalist." Your correspondent advocates low wages as the panacea for the want of work whieh has prevailed here. He jputs the farmer in evidence as unable to I employ labour, unless at greatly reduced , rates. But he forgets to. draw attention to what has crippled so many farmers, namely, the high rates of interest which, they have had to pay ; for money to purchase land or increase their holdings, or to enable them to . carry on until their crops were marketable. The higher the interest which ,ha 3 gone into the pockets of the capitalists the lower the wages to be paid to the workers, or a less number of workers to be employed. This is at least one side of ihe question, and ought not to be overlooked in considering the position of the poor farmer and his capacity to pay wages. In other words, the case may be stated thus: —Which has most oppressed the farmer, the working man or the capitalist? "Colonist" speaks of his "wage," as he is humbly content to term it, as having varied from £1 per week to £2 a day and allowances; and almost in , the same breath holds up a wage of 4s a day as ample, his conclusion being that " men want too much here." In what a complacent and self-satisfied way some men can argue ! No doubt, "Colonist," especially if a bachelor for years, was well able to put by something for the,," ever recurring rainy day " out ■of his own high wage; but that he should expect working men, married men, men with families, to provide for a rainy day,'--, out of 24s a week, and no allowance, is too sublime. If your correspondent is a family man, or in a way to become one, he has doubtless worked out the problem of the cost of living. It would be interesting to know how the munificent sum he allots as a fair wage is to support a man with a wife and several young children. The problem is by no means an easy one, even where there is constant work; still less is it easy where the wage is 4s a day, with frequent or occasional days when there is no work to be had. Your correspondent's remarks may, perhaps, apply to relief work for the unemployed from time to time, but to attempt to set up 4s a day as an ordinary standard rate of pay is opposed to the views of yours, &c, CRITIC. April 8.