WAGES AND THE FAMILY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19150, 16 October 1925, Page 10

WAGES AND THE FAMILY.

The Labour Party's campaign is depending to an extraordinary degree upon systematic raisreprcsen- ! tat ion. That has been illustrated by the inconsistent interpretations of its land policy and by statements in its manifesto and in speeches by its candidates, until such a position has been reached that it is impossible to accept any statement by the party or its members without examination of its accuracy. An extreme example of deliberate distortion of facts is furnished by the party's, presentation of the "Reform Party's proposal to supplement the wages of workers with large families. According to the original text of the manifesto "proposals to meet this difficulty have been put forward" and "the Government will examine them carefully. That undertaking has been deliberately and dishonestly distorted by Mr. Lee, in a Labour publication, into a declaration that "the Reform Party proposes to reduce wages another 7s (3d per week." He bases that statement upon a grossly misleading summary of a passage in the last report by the Secretary for Labour. The latter merely suggests as "one possible solution of the question in New Zealand" a scheme by which wages would be adjusted, through the agency of a central fund, according to the number of dependent children. On the presumption that there is one child under 14 years to every adult male , worker, the suggestion is that the'

deduction of a given sum —7s 6d is merely a suggestionit might have been 20s —from each worker's wages would supply an equivalent allowance for each child. Mr. Lee proclaims the deductions, but he cunningly glosses over the essential feature that these amounts would be used to supplement the wages of family men, so that only workers without children would lose anything. Men with one child each would receive an allowance for it, and thus retain the basic wage : those with two children would receive two allowances, increasing their wages by 7s 6d (if that amount were adopted); those with three children would receive an increase of 15s and so on. This is all set out clearly in the report, and when Mr. Lee presented it as proving that "Reform aims at a further reduction of 7s 6d per worker per week," he knew that his statement was not even a half-truth. The problem of adjusting income to social responsibilities is not such a simple matter as would appear from the "suggested solution" in the Labour Department's report, or the Labour Party's proposal of motherhood endowment. Mr. Coates has undertaken to examine the proposals. He has not suggested that it would be either just or advisable to base a scheme on the principle of the Labour Department's suggestions. A solution might be found either wholly through the State or by combining with an adjustment of wages contributions by the State and by the employers. Acceptance of the principle is simple enough, but the difficulties of practical operation have to be overcome, and to suggest that the Government has discovered a complete scheme is simply nonsense. Excuses could be found for Mr. Lee if he had merely been absurd in his misrepresentation, but there can be no condonation of his deliberate perversion of the Government's proposal of an important i social reform.