ECONOMIC LAWS AND WORDS.

Southland Times, Issue 21772, 29 July 1932, Page 3

ECONOMIC LAWS AND WORDS.

To the Editor.

Sir, —In answer to your footnote in the Southland Times of Tuesday, 26th —“dealing with the past and present the chief concern must be ‘what is.’ ” Well, sir, why the writer insists, as you rightly suppose he does, that “should be” is to be the chief aim is because we should be more concerned with the present and future than the past and present; the past has gone and the chief useful purpose that a record of the past can serve is to help in making plans for solving problems, of _ the major consideration regarding time, the future. Now, sir, as regards the law of supply and demand your correspondent’s contention is: The law of supply and demand is one of Nature’s laws and if you attempt to make a workable man-made law that is directly repugnant to it you will meet with little success, but you may with considerable success divert ■it from operating in an undesired direction. And the writer ventures to say, it was with this end in view that some of our worthy Parliamentarians in the past caused to be put on the Statute Book humanitarian legislation fixing a minimum wage or a remuneration entitling the person who was willing, to work, to the ordinary comforts of life. In dealing with the second half, of my letter regarding the deduction hinging on the two adverse meanings of the word "priceless,” you seek to nullify the conclusion in briefly stating “Priceless has but one meaning in the dictionary.” Here again I would remind you, sir, that Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language; page 727, gives the following meanings to the word “price[ess”_beyond price; invaluable; without value ;worthless. So, Mr Editor, what better authority than the above does a correspondent need?—l am, etc. “BUSINESS.” [This matter rose over our correspondent’s proposal that the law of supply and demand should govern salaries. Our reply was and is that this “law” in fairness could not be cited because it was “diverted” in awards. With our contention that it did not apply in fixing rates of pay under awards our correspondent at last agrees. In answer to the final question: A better dictionary will show the adverse meaning of the word as slang—see Murray’s Oxford Dictionary.—Ed S.T.]