THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, AUGUST 16, 1947. THE WAGE INCREASE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26541, 16 August 1947, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, AUGUST 16, 1947. THE WAGE INCREASE

It.may be doubted if the pronouncement of the Court of Arbitration on the application of the Federation of Labour for wage increases will be fully approved by any section of the community. It will not be approved by the federation, for, although the court has decided that there were grounds for increases being made, it held that the position did not justify the demands which were put forward. The employers cannot approve of the increase which has been given for reasons which their representatives set forth at the hearing of the application—reasons, it may be added, which were based on economic principles which cannot lightly be ignored. Nor will the wage earner be content with the increase of approximately 3d per hour for, although the court considers it has taken into account the probable effect of the removal of subsidies from a number of commodities in daily use, other estimates have been made which indicate that the increase in prices will more than offset this rise in wages. Apart from the increase, the pronouncement of the court is open to objection on other grounds. In response to the application, which the court states made greater claims than had ever been submitted to it in its history, a very lengthy finding has been brought down but in spite of its length, or perhaps because of it, there is no single clear statement of its directions. The manner in which the pronouncement is to be applied is obscure, and the time in which many important questions of interpretation have to be decided is limited. The court states that the increased rates allowed have not the effect of a general wage order, since this was not required of it, and the increases will not be applicable to workers who are already receiving rates in excess of those which will become effective on October 1. In such cases, it is stated, the court’s findings have no legal authority. But if there is no authority to grant increases, it is less clear whether there is any prohibition of the practices by which in luxury and other uneconomic industries wage rates have already been forced up to attract labour from more essential production. The court has simply viewed the application in the light of the discrepancies which have grown up between rates of pay and it has decided that an increase is warranted. It is not concerned with the causes of those discrepancies nor was it concerned with the workers’ grievances which arise from political causes and lie outside its sphere. Mr Prime has, however, commendably made a point of emphasising these limitations and has stated his conviction that “ the principle of increasing production in order to lower prices of consumable goods and services is the only method by which the purchasing power and thus the standard of- livin'g of the people of New Zealand, or of any country, can be improved.” The court is merely a machinery; it is not an institution to formulate policy, and its finding must be regarded in this light. This country, it is increasingly apparent, is confronted by the spectacle of a developing vicious spiral of wage and price increases, and the lesson which was to have been learned years ago still remains to be learned.

A RETICENT DIPLOMAT Discretion, it lias often and facetiously been remarked, is the better part of valour. It must also form no small part of the diplomatic equipment of Soviet plenipotentaries abroad, as is evident .from a perusal of the interview with Mr Ivan Ziabkin who is returning to his own country. Mr Ziabkin was nothing if not discreet, and the replies he returned to his interlocutor were obviously the dictates of caution rather than a confession of the ignorance he professed. And, indeed, who is there who wquld blame Mr Ziabkin for his reticence? His appointment, while doubtless pleasurable to him and of some usefulness to his country, was productive of no diplomatic triumphs of which he could speak; official statistics contain no evidence of any significant increase in trade between the two countries, and the opportunities of a Russian Minister to assist visiting citizens of his country must have been strictly limited. It would, seem, in fact, that in the exchange of fuller diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and New Zealand, Mr Ziabkin’s appointment was only slightly less superfluous than that of Mr Boswell, who has not even a political philosophy to uphold in his sumptuous, if rather lonely, office in Moscow. The convention that requires departing diplomats to utter pleas for co-operation and amity was, designedly perhaps, ignored by Mr Ziabkin. The omission is hardly likely to be regarded as significant. Co-operation is a matter of give and take, and is impossible when any one country accepts only the more enriching of these provisions. The Soviet Union, for instance, has taken quite a lot. It has taken the wealth of Western Europe and Manchuria, it has taken the autonomy of the Western European states, and it has taken exception to any suggestion that its action might be high-handed or wrong. What, in return, has it contributed to post-war reconstruction? As an American magazine recently pointed out Communists the world over point to Russia as a shining example of international co-operation. Yet .Russia is hot a member of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, UNESCO, the International Civil Aviation Organisation or the International Trade Organisation now forming at Geneva. Russia was a non-contributing member of UNRRA. Mr Ziabkin was fully aware of his country’s policy, and of world opinion on it. He was aware, also that official reaction to positive expressions of viewpoints by Soviet representatives abroad could be disconcertingly prompt. Prudence alone might have dictated that he take refuge in cigar smoke and silence.