UNDER-RATE PERMITS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17273, 14 September 1916, Page 6

UNDER-RATE PERMITS.

Mr Cyrus Williams very properly impressed upon tJio executive of the Patriotic Fund Committee yesterday the necessity- for caution in dealing with the question of providing for returned soldiers under the system of under-rate permits. So far the problem has been met in the right spirit by representatives of employers, employees ami the Patriotic Fund, and we are not Mire that any very serious difficulties are to he apprehended. That a returned soldier shall not bo debarred fiom obtaining employment because ho is unable to earn the full rate oi wages, set out .in an award of the Arbitration Court is a proposition which nobody can dispute, and one upon the justice of which the public will insist, lint the protection of labour in general against unfair competition "is equally important, while the Patriotic Fund must on no account be drawn against to subsidise an employer whose scruples arc of an attenuated description. An employer of labour, however, has got to be just before he is generous—just to his business and to his ordinary employees, who will probably suffer eventually, if good wages are paid to indifferent workmen. Opinions appear to vary ns to the part which the statutory pension should taka in adjusting the circumstances of an under-rate worker. To our inind, that should presout no difficulty. The pension is not the concern of the conferring employer and labour representative. who are required otlly to assess the value of service, but.it is a. highly proper consideration to guide the trustees of the Fntriotio Fund. The soldier who comes back partly unfit—that is, a, man who does not want to be not* should lie idle, but one who cannot earn award wages—should receive employment at a rate commensurate with his ability, and the Patriotic Fund should be available to supplement wages and pension in order to provide a living income—and a comfortable, ordinary living income at that. Acting on these lines, those citizons who have undertaken the task should he able, without large difficulties, to' treat each individual case with justice. But the subject will require to be handled with a combination of sympathy and judgment.