GETTING BACK TO NORMAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21266, 21 February 1931, Page 19

GETTING BACK TO NORMAL

HOW EVERYONE CAN HELP. [Contributed.] Men and women in steady employment cannot honourably evade their duty to their less fortunate fellow citizens, and that duty is to do what they can to create a demand for workers, in shops and offices and warehouses and manufactories of all kinds. It is possible that very many of these wage and salary earners have during the slump donned a cloak of sackcloth and ashes, none the less effective because it was invisible, as a scourge and reminder against unessential spending. This policy has distinct merit in times of prosperity, for the A B C of political economy is for the individual and the community to make provision for tlie inevitable rainy day. But when “times are hard” there is an obligation upon all who are in work to expand their financial operations. Now, it is a self-evident fact that the times are not actually “ hard for those in receipt of wages or salaries. xhe pound note, it is true, has participated in the slump, and it now takes £1 10s lid to buy what 20s would have bought in pre-war days. This fact, however, does not involve hardship tb the man. whose pay envelope is regular. The weeklyamount will still buy its value in pounds sterling, and its lesser purchasing power is not a loss of money in the sense that a lost job is a financial disaster. It probably has not, for example, been essentia,! for the salaried man to ration either Iris food, his clothing, his pastimes, or his hobbies; and yet there is reason to believe that in some of these items he has severely rationed himself. The inevitable result has been a considerable reduction in the output of the goods which his Spartan self-sacrifice has caused him to forswear, and the equally unavoidable shortage of jobs for the hundreds of men and women who handle those goods. The “cut” in the salaries of civil servants must be followed by a reduction in all wages, a corresponding lessening of all cost of production, and an appreciable drop in prices of all commodities. It is sound economic; fact that when prices are high the value of money is low, and that when prices are low the value of money is high. If an equitable all-round reduction in wages is met by a corresponding fall in retail prices not a single individual will have suffered a penn’orth- of money loss, and the country’s financial burdens will he tremendously eased. ! That the Government is behind the wage-earners in this aspect of the situation is plainly evident from the following extract from the Prime Minister’s recent statement: — It is expected that the benefit of the reduction in salaries and wages will be passed on to the public in one form or another. In fact, I wish it to be clearly understood that the Government .will do its utmost and will use all its powers to see that there is no exploitation of the situation. As a precautionary step, the Industries and Commerce Department is being instructed to keep the matter constantly under review, in order to ensure that the reductions in wages and overhead costs are reflected immediately in the cost, of living. In fact, the Government is relying upon further bringing down the cost of living to offset the reduction in nominal wages. Surely there is in this declaration a warrant for a less nervous outlook and a loosening of purse strings. All that is needed is a gradual return to industrial health, but this never can be achieved if individuals continue rigorously to restrict their spendng to the minimum degree. It is not suggested that over-spending shall succeed the period of abstention; but it is suggested that there is a definite obligation upon all those in permanent positions to take a wider view—-an impersonal view —of the industrial situation, and to follow up that view by a practical demonstration of their willingness to help.