WAGES AND BUYING POWER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22250, 26 October 1935, Page 17

WAGES AND BUYING POWER

Sir,—Mr. Vailo says that I must be very ignorant if I do not know how the United States undersell their cheap-labour competitors, but 1 gave ihe correct reason in nine words. He would have us believe that tho highwage countries, all down tho centuries, have consistently sold their goods in neutral markets at a loss, vet even in this correspondence he lias (in this case rightly) argued that trading transactions must be mutually profitable, or they could not continue. Thus lie blows hot and cold with the one breath! Nor does it appear to have occurred to him that high-wage countries have no monopoly of "dumping." The only point I raised in this discussion was the popular fallacy that high wages mean high prices, and Mr. Vaile has cut a sorry figure in trying vainly to support this delusion. As for tho land question, if Mr. Vaile can find space, I will meet his 17th-century views on the private monopoly of tho source of all wages, capital and wealth and expose his sophistry, i denounce the "stealing" of the land, with or without compensation; that is why I oppose Mr. Vaile's views. C.H.N.