Capitalism's Records

NZ Truth, Issue 770, 7 August 1920, Page 1

Capitalism's Records

In the above, we have dealt only with the first sentence m the paragraph quoted. Let us look now at the >econd and concluding sentence: No "capitalist" m Australia sweats * profit out of starvation as badly as that.

JPrue ! Why? Simply because it would Hot pay him to do it "as badly as that." .Moreover, ho knows how to do it a darned sight better than that. When *md where is the capitalist who Is content to pocket "five shillings m the pound," of the- wealth the workers produce? He is not m New Zealand, and we will take -our "Alfred David" Jh6 does not exist, anywhere m Australia and least of all m Broken Hill. J^e,*nave only to turn- to the records given. m the Commonwealth and State ftrear Books to get ample proof that *his la so. If we take the total figures ©f the wealth produced annually and deduct the portion of that wealth .•which finds its way to the wallets «f the workers m the form of wages, mo find that the wealth retained by '•the plute push and brought back to ftbelr coffers by tho artifices of rent,

interest and profit, amounts to over eighty per cent, of the total wealth produced by the Labor of all the workers of Australia. The less than twenty per cent, retained by, or handed back to, the -workers, is only sufficient to provide them with an existence. Some few are able to knock a little better thing out of it than the others, but against these there has to be set the much larger number who, just because a few of their fellows get a larger slice of the proletariats' portion, have to subsist on less. "Five shillings m the pound?" No "capitalist" m Australia sweats profit out of starvation as badly as that No ! No miserable five "bob" m the pound for him. Nothing short of sixteen shillings and a bit over will satffefy the rapacious appetite of Plute.