WAGES AND WORDS.

Southland Times, Issue 21773, 30 July 1932, Page 10

WAGES AND WORDS.

To the Editor. Sir—Regarding your footnote to my letter appearing in to-day’s issue, July '29 of the Southland Times, I agree with what you say in the first three lines. In the second three lines you say, “Our reply was and is that this ‘law’ (the law of supply and demand) in fairness could not be cited because it was ‘diverted’ in awards.” Well, sir, as I have already explained, the fixing of a maximum or living wage was not considered so much from a point of fairness as from a point of humanitarianism on the grounds that every person brought into this world by no choice of their own is entitled if they are prepared to work to the ordinary comforts of life. I might illustrate this point by saying, that it is not fair for a single man to receive nine shillings a day for doing the same work that a married man gets twelve shillings and sixpence for, but it could be considered more humanitarian in so much that he has more necessities of life to purchase—so that while by fixing a minimum wage you only divert the law of supply and demand from operating below what might be called the bread and butter line you do not and cannot stop its operations above this line and the diverting of it from this undesired direction intensifies its activities, more or less, in other directions and I think this can be seen going on all around us. Now, sir, in reference to your quotation—“ Priceless” has but one meaning in the dictionary. I endeavoured to meet this- by quoting from Chamber’s Dictionary four meanings to the word and asked for a better authority which you responded to by saying “a better dictionary will show the adverse meaning of the word as slang—see Murray’s Oxford Dictionary—so, sir, as you have not as yet ventured any meaning to the word “priceless” it is difficult to know by comparison what the adverse meaning is, which is to be known as slang. And, finally, Mr Editor, as you have advised I have consulted Murray’s Oxford Dictionary and this is what I find in Vol. VIL O. and P. page 1343. “Priceless”: 1. Without price; having a value beyond price or equivalent; invaluable; inestimable. 2. Having no value; valueless; worthless.—l am, etc. “BUSINESS.”

[Our correspondent is too hasty. Though he saw page - 1343 he forgot to include the significant word “rare” after the No. 2 meaning, a word printed in italics to show its importance. “Priceless” in the modern sense of “having no value” is set down in most dictionaries as slang. Murray says jt is rarely used in that sense. “Business” should be more careful in quotations. Our correspondent does not seem ready to see that the economic law, which he cited, does not deal with rights and wrongs, but with ascertained facts. “Business” wanted a lav/ applied to salaries; we contended this was unfair and not in accord with the avowals of the Labour Party, and that it was not permitted to apply in making awards.—Ed. S.T.]