Manawatu Daily Times [ESTABLISHED 21st MAY, 1875. WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 1922. WORKERS' WAGES,

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 2125, 17 May 1922, Page 4

Manawatu Daily Times [ESTABLISHED 21st MAY, 1875. WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 1922. WORKERS' WAGES,

Mr J. McCombs, M.P., in an article In our issue of to-day, suggests (.hat the workers must do something more than resist the demand that wages shall be reduced faster than the cost of living decreases. He states that wages wore not increased in proportion to the increases in the cost of living, and should not now be reduced in proportion to the cost of living deceases. His assumption is, of course, that employers have been taking advantage of tho economic situation to produce enormous profits, and they should be prepared to bear a greater share of the. burden than they have been doing in the past. If it could be shown that the employers, as a body, are. in a better position to-day than they were in 1914, there might .be justification for the attitude assumed by the member for Lytfclton. ! Unfortunately, however, the evidence is all in the opposite direction. The primary producers, upon whom the trade of the country depends, are not making anything like the profits they were making in 1914. .Manufacturers and tradesmen are in a similar position. But, if it could be proved that employers generally were making protits equal to those made in 1914, it must be remembered that the charges upon them in taxation have enormously increased, and the value of their profits has been considerably reduced. Mr McCombs states that, measured in purchasing power, wages are actually 20 per cent below those ruling in 1914, and he claims that workers should receive at least an equivalent to the 1914 rates. Perhaps he is not aware, that the war cost this country over £100,000.000, and that the charges for pensions and repatriation are running into millions of pounds every year. Is the burden of taxation to be borne entirely by the fanners and by employers of labour? If the contention of Mr McCombs is sound, then it must be so. There is, however, another aspect of the question that the member for Lyttelton appears to have overlooked. If the standard of wages is to be maintained at an equivalent to that of 1914. then (here is no hope of a reduction in the cost of living, and the thousands of pensioners, superannuants, and others whose income is based upon pre-war conditions, will be driven to desperation. Does ilr McCombs think it equitable and just that only the trade unionist and the public servant shall be provided with a. fair standard of living? Does he ask that they alone be relieved of the burden of the war? Would he consider it proper that incapacitated soldiers, and the widows and orphans of those who have fallen, should bo driven to starvation in order that the trade unionist might secure a "fair standard of living?" If the member for Lyttelton insists that the workers shall make no sacrifice, then he must be prepared to show how provision is to lie made for the widows and orphans. The article of Mr McCombs is not convincing. It is not even logical. Jt strikes one as being an attempt to create, class difference at a period when mutual sacrifice and co-operation is most urgently required.