ANOTHER LABOUR VIEW

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11195, 28 April 1922, Page 9

ANOTHER LABOUR VIEW

CONTINUATION OF PRESENT WAGES URGED. ' Mr T. Bloodworth also addressed the Court on behalf of the workers. He said it was remarkable that no retailers had been called in evidence by the employers. The fact was that the retailers were adversely affected by a reduction in the spending-power of the workers. What had affected the farmers’ position Was the reduoed purchas-ing-power of European purchasers. Where improvement was needed here wae in management. After traversing the question at some length-Mr Bloodworth concluded:—“The demand for reductions in wages and salaries comes largely from land speculators, men who only by an abuse of the language can be called bona fide farmers. Have the enormous profits made by these land speculators, 'merchants and manufacturers vanished in thin air, or do they stilli exist in farm lands, stocks and shares, in much enlarged and much more valuable business premises? One thing is certain, and that is that since no such profits accrued to the wageearner, he lias no unexpended surplus thus locked up. When employers and producers make an extra profit one year they do not immediately raise wages; why, then, should wages be reduced at the first intimation of reduced profits? Before wages are reduced the Legislature should oall_ upon all those clamouring for a reduction to produce all the requisite documents to show what happened to the profits they made during the good years, years in which they did not ask that wages should be what the industry could bear. It is not right to reduce wages because a few merchants and land speculators got nipped bv over-specu-lation ; they never intended to share their profits with the workers. Why, then, should the workers be asked to bear their losses—? To keep wages at the present level would teach ' the speculator a lesson; it would also tend to weed out the inefficient employer who, from a strictly eoonomic point of view, tends to depress wages and increase prices, for prioes depend upon the cost of production by the most inefficient producer in the industry. To make the workers’ wages depend upon tlie capacity of the most inefficient and foolish, is to give the employer, and deny the worker, the advantages which accrue from the progress of science and industry. Such are the reasons why we oppose any reduction in rates of remuneration at the present time, and ask the court to order that present minimum rates continue for at least a further six months.” The case will be continued at 10 a.m .to-day.

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