GETTING BACK TO NORMAL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 20 February 1931, Page 9

GETTING BACK TO NORMAL

HOW EVERYONE CAN HELP (Contributed.) Men and women in steady employment cannot honourably evade their duty to their less fortunate fellowcitizens; and that duty is to do what they can to create a demand for workers in shops and offices and warehouses, and manufactories of all kinds. It is possible that very many of these wage and salary earners have during the slump donned a cloak of sackcloth and ashes, none the less effective because it was invisible, as a scourge and reminder against unessential spending. This policy has distinct merit in limes of prosperity, for the ABC of political economy is for the individual and the community to make provision for the inevitable rainy day. But when “times are hard” there is ail obligation upon all who are in work to expand their financial operations.

Now it is a- self-evident fact that iho times are not actually “hard” for those in receipt of wages or salaries. The pound, note, it is true, has participated in the slump, and it now takes £1 10s lid to buy what 20s would have bought in pre-war days. This fact, however, does npt involve hardship to the man whose pay envelope is regular. The weekly amount will still buy its value in pounds sterling, and its lesser purchas-ing-power is not a loss of money_ in the sense that a lost job is a financial disaster.

It probably has not, for example, been essential for the salaried man to ration either his food, his clothing, his pastimes or his hobbies; and yet there is reason to believe that in some of these items ho has severely rationed himself. The inevitable result has been a considerable reduction in the output of the goods which his Spartan sclfsacrifice has caused him to forswear, and the equally unavoidable 'shortage of jobs for the hundreds of men and women who handle those goods. The cut in the salaries of Civil servants must be followed by a reduction in all wages, a corresponding lessening of all (cost- of production, and an appreciable drop in prices 6f all commodities. It- is sound economic fact that when prices are high the value of money is low, and that when prices are low the value of money is high. _ If any equitable all-round reduction in wages is met by a corresponding fall in retail prices not a single individual will have suffered a penn’orth of money loss, and the country’s financial burdens will be tremendously eased. That the Government is behind the wage-earners in this aspect of the situation is plainly evident from the following extract from the Prime Minister's recent statement: It is expected that the benefit of the reduction in salaries and wages will be passed on to the public in one form or another. In fact, I wish it to he clearly understood that the Government will do its utmost and will use all its powers to sec that there is no exploitation of the situation. As a precautionary step, the Industries and Commerce Department is being instructed to keep the matter constantly under review, in order to ensure that the reductions in wages and overhead costs are reflected immediately in the cost of living. In fact, the Government is relying upon further bringing down the cost of living to offset the reduction ill nominal wages.

Surely there is in this declaration a warrant for a less-nervous outlook and a loosening of pursestrings. All that is needed is a gradual return to mdustria health, but this never can be achieved if individuals continue rigorously to restrict their spending to the minimum degree.,' It is not suggested that overspending shall succeed the period ot abstention; but it is suggested that there is a definite obligation upon all those in permanent positions to take a wider view—an impersonal view—ol the industrial situation, and to follow up that view by a practical demonstration of their willingness to help.