COMMUNISTIC BREAD

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22030, 9 February 1935, Page 17

COMMUNISTIC BREAD

Sir, —This discussion started about bread. Mr. Warburton would now extend its scope to include brass tacks. Very well. Our friend wants to be able to compart Russian and New Zealand standards of living. We think we can give him some helpful suggestions. In the first place. Ave suggest that the average New Zealand worker knows iust as well as Mr. Warburton can tell liim how many 21b. loaves he could buy with 14s 7d. The average New Zealand Worker's problem is how to lay his hands on the 14s 7d. Can Mr. Warburton tell him ? It is a simple thing to fix a standard wage. It is quite another thing to provide employment for all, and to see that all get a rate of pay that will sustain body and soul degently. The Soviet Government has 'solved that problem. Friends of the Soviet Union.

Sir, —Pursuing my inquiries a little further, I find that in 1930 the average wage of a Russian worker was 95.36 roubles for a period of four weeks, say, 24 roubles a week. With this money he could buy 12 loaves, while the New Zealand worker could buy 32 with one day's pay. The expenditure sheet of the Russian worker shows the following principal items: —Food, 50 roubles; rent and lighting, 14 roubles; clothing, 13£ roubles; contribution union and Communist party, 25.76 roubles. 1 wonder what our workers would say if called upon to pay away a quarter of their earnings in subscriptions to unions and propaganda. Re social services: In 1930 the British Government spent four times the amount spent by the Soviet on .these, and as the population of Britain is less than a-third of that of the Soviet Republic, the British expenditure per capita was more than 12 times that of the Russian. Even after making allowance for the difference in the purchasing value of money, the comparison is vastly in favour of the capitalistic state. Money wages in Russia are to-dav greater than under the Empire, but real wages (purchasing power) are often much less. A perusal of the above figures is enough to show the New Zealand worker that he is much better off than his Russian confrere. Anyone wishing to check above statements is referred to Lawton's Economic History of Soviet Russia, volume 11., pp. 586-8. This takes us only to 1931; but all the leeway there shown cannot have been made up yet. 1 do not think the unskilled Russian worker is receiving a daily wage of 64 roubles needed to put him on a par with the New -Zealand worker. A. Warburton.