THE HUMAN FACTOR.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20905, 20 December 1929, Page 3

THE HUMAN FACTOR.

TO THE kDITOB.

Sir, —Your correspondent, Mr W. Sivcrsteu deserves many congratulations upon his deep and interesting thoughts concerning the economic problems of life. .His confession that the arguments and illustrations given by Mr Keilson against the system of private-ownership, if taken by themselves are sound and. excellent and "irrefutable, is surely some consolation. Without attempt to claim that the abolition of private ownership is the great solution of all our economic defects, sufficient to say that it is a large contributing factor towards removing the defects, and if we can agree upon this point and pass on to the other problem of rent, interest, and wage fixation we may make tone littlh progress. Your correspondent states that the owners of land and capital have no power to fix rent and interest, nor have they any power to fix wages o Is there any possibility of obtaining the information. Who does fix the wages? Do the members of trade unions fix the wages? Does the Arbitration Court fix the wages? Does the consumer fix the wages? If the trade union obtains *n increase of a penny per hour, the cost of living moves up. and the worker is in a much worse position than previously. If the Arbitration Court attempts to raise tho standard of living of the wage worker, we are told that this will ruin the people, increase the cost of living, and reduce the purchasing power of the consumer, and so the vicious circle continually revolves by some secret propelling force. Strikes, “go slow,”'Labour Governments cannot solve the problem. Where can tve find the light? If an iron moulder should approach his employer for an increase in wages, ho is told that it cannot be granted, as the trade will not stand it. and yet we usually find that same employer, who privately owns the foundry, continually increasing the number of his employees, ins weekly wage bill, his private capital, which seems to he ever growing in value as a result of the co-operative effort in production. There are some businesses in this city which a few years ago could have been bought for a few thousand. To-day, the value, or selling price to the owner, will have increased a hundred-fold, as a result o£ the commodities produced by the employees. Despite tho accumulation of private capital we continually hear the wail that the conditions of wilt not. allow an increase of wasce.

Every advance obtained by the worker has been the result of a long and tedious struggle by organised effort. Should anyone suggest a change iu the eystem of wealth production he is told the same old story that we have been told for years—namely, that the overlooks the human factor which spurs us on—that of loss and gain. This is the mighty power which eliminates waste, tends to develop thrift, and makes the multi-millionaires. At what price? Let us take an example. The Government of this Dominion has decided that the people of Dunedin shall have a new Post Office. The design of the Post Office has boon adopted. Expert-public engineers will spend weeks in estimating and calculating the amount of material required, the cost of material, the cost of labour, transport, and all overhead expenses. Now the interesting game of loss and gain begins. Tenders are called for, the expert builders of the Dominion sit for weeks, day and night, estimating and calculating bow to eliminate waste and any other superfluous articles which the specification may contain, and, like real sportsmen that we are. we accept the lowest tender, and like honest people we appoint an honest watchman, night and day, to be sure that the successful contractor docs not evade his obligations. Wc prefer that the responsibility shall be borne by some individual who is imbued with sufficient business ability and courage _to 'undertake a-risk which the community has not confidence to undertake; or, in other words, we-still retain in our mental organ the slave master’s idea that the whip, or economic pressure, must bo brought to bear in order to make men toil. If there are those who overlook the human.factors in the economic world they arc not the Socialists or Labourites; they are those with a case-hardened conservative mind who are compelled to admit that needless suffering is here in our midst, chiefly the result of cut-throat competition in the commercial and ccomomic system of to-day. If it should be found essential that the human mind ndeds a tonic in some form of excitement or competition, let it prevail upon the racecourse and in other kinds of sport, but not in the production of the essentials of life.—l am, etc., R. Harrison. December 18.