PAYMENT TO THE WORKLESS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20964, 1 March 1930, Page 11

PAYMENT TO THE WORKLESS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —With all due deference to the special committee on unemployment I would submit that it has approached the subject from the wrong angle. If one analyses the question, one will find that unemployment can be traced almost entirely to the Arbitration Court. All industry is now hedged around with all kinds of restrictions about wages, numbers of boys to men, etc., in a way that was never dreamed of when the Act was passed. The Act has served its purpose long ago, and now is nothing but a brake oji industry. If the living wage is £4 10s per week or thereabouts, as the Arbitration Court seta out, what is the use of paying any man a dole of £1 Is? The inference is that he must starve to death. I would not say that all wages are too high, but I certainly think that young people in general are overpaid, and that this overpayment is not good for them, from any point of view, I also say that the rules and regulations governing all industry today savour more of a comic opera than of real life. No sane man knowing all the ins and outs of Arbitration Court awards will to-day engage in business employing labour, unless’he is already committed to some venture from which he cannot free himself.

It is usually asked, “What would you put in place of the Arbitration Court ? " T would respectfully submit that nothing is necessary in its place beyond the strong unions that at present exist. From a union without an Arbitration Court one might expect a commonsense deal, but there is very little commonsense about the present arrangements. The proposal to tax undistributed company profits also shows lack of understanding. If there is any expansion in industry to-day it comes from the undistributed profits—not from the distributed profits, as the commission evidently thinks. —I am, etc., Business Man.