Increased Wages and Shorter Hours

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 7246, 28 August 1933, Page 5

Increased Wages and Shorter Hours

(To the Editor.) Sir,—ln your issue of August 24, you publish, a message from Banff. Professor Gregory of tho University of London makes a very interesting statement regarding tho fallacy of increasing wages and ■ shortening hours as the means of solving tho economic problems of U.S.A.. He does not inform the world, however, how tho present deadlock can be broken or explain the plans in the present financial system which has caused tho world depression, A good example of the effects of these flaws in the costing and price structure is afforded by the present conditions in U.S.A., an industrial country with a population of 126 millions and tho capacity to produce the whole of its needs and an abundance of gold to purchase any raw material. Surely thore should bo no scarcity or want in this great country. Yet there uto 12 million unemployed, and money is very scarce.

Now, what is the cause of these conditions? It is not shortage of gold.. It is not tho burden of external debt. It is the loss of her foreign markets, because her industries cannot recover their costs in the homo market. The same thing will exist even if they nationalise their entire industry and abolish profit-making, for as long as they retain their present credit policy and costing system they will bo unable to buy more than a fraction of the goods they produco and will be compelled to find foreign markets from which to recover the balanco of their costs. Tho existence of flaws in the financial and costing system make it imperative for every country to force its goods upon foreign markets in order that its own people may live, and this is the real cause of modern war. The nationalisation of the ownership of industry will not solve the economic problem so long as our financial and costing system remains as it is. The problem is to make tho purchasing power in the hands of the community at any given moment equate with the collective prices of the goods on sale at that moment. The present system fails to produce this end and fails in its primary object to enable tho individual to get goods. There is nothing industry cannot produce, given the money, and there i.s a potential abundance of everything mankind can desire. Everybody will agree, sir, that there exists on the other hand a genuine need of these things. INVICTUS. Palmerston North 25/8/33.