COROLLARY TO FIXED WAGES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25301, 11 August 1943, Page 2

COROLLARY TO FIXED WAGES

ENDORSEMENT BY UNION (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Aug. 10. The Labourers’ Federation has warmly endorsed the intention of the Government to stabilise the value of land, and expresses the view that the proposed legislation is a logical corollary of the stabilisation of the price of labour. Mr P. M. Butler, secretary of the federation, speaking on behalf of the federation to-day, said that the stabilisation of wages and working conditions had been welcomed by the newspapers and persons in authoritative positions as a well-thought-out and necessary procedure. Over recent months, Mr Butler said, transactions’ in the transfers of land, both urban and rural, had been phenomenal, and suck transactions bore all the appearances of gambling and speculation. The result had been that land values had soared out of proportion to relative real wages, and if the price of labour was pegged while land values were allowed to soar the consequences woultj be a drastic reduction in the value of money wages. It was necessary to stabilise land values to prevent unseen inflation attacking the very foundations of the country’s economic structure. Mr Butler added that it was worth remembering that wages had been stabilised by Order-in-Council, but the proposals for the stabilisation of land values were to be debated on the floor of Parliament, where those opposed to the measure could give expression to their objection. , Replying to the Law Society s statement, Mr Butler said there was no blot on the title of any person’s property. The aim* of the measure was to prevent unsocial speculation in land that would undermine the principles of stabilisation, which had been endorsed by a majority of representative organisations and the press. If unrestricted speculation in land were permitted the whole edifice would collapse and the people would be cursed with all the horrors of inflation, which would be aggravated by the fact that wages were pegged.