Are Wages Too High?

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 614, 16 March 1929, Page 8

Are Wages Too High?

OUR STANDARDS OF LIVING ONE of the arguments most frequently urged against the fostering of manufacturing industries in New Zealand is that a higli tariff and high rates of wages awarded by the Arbitration Court will combine to force up the price of goods and increase the cost of living. Also that this added burden will be mainly borne by the man on the land whose returns for his labour are fixed by free competition in the open markets of the world.

During the recent round-table talk in Auckland between representatives from farming producers and our local manufacturers, the conference reached a deadlock when one of the Farmers’ Union officials stated that labour costs had to be reduced, and when the president of the Auckland Manufacturers’ Association asked, “Would you have low wages here?” the farmers’ representative replied: “Yes; I want wages down and everything else down in proportion so it wii! be a real wage at an actually low figure. Everyone would be better off.” This view was shared by other rural delegates and corresponds with those expressed by the Auckland farming delegates to the National Industrial Conference last year. These farmers

contend that they have to produce and sell their foodstuffs and raw materials in an unsheltered market in open competition with the Soviet serfs of Siberia, the peons of Argentine, the Kaffirs of South Africa and the peasant labourers of Europe, and are being constantly forced down to the low standard of living endured by their competitors. They say the farmer and his family have to slave long hours for poor returns, while the exotic industrialist in the towns is sheltered behind a tariff wall, that he wishes to build it still higher, and that his labour conditions and wages are artificially regulated by an Arbitration

Court which is continuously raising the I cost of living. MAINTAINING THE STANDARD It has already been shown from the census of 1926 that the "breadwinners” of the Dominion are made up of 142,076 primary producers, 134,257 manufacturing producers, and 285,515 engaged in other occupations. So that only one in four of our breadwinners is employed on the land, and this demand from a small section of the farmers for a wholesale reduction of wages and lowering of our standard of living, means that three out of every four of our breadwinners must suffer, so that the farmer may enjoy the illusory benefit of cheap wages and cheap goods. We in New Zealand pride ourselves on the high standard of living we have attained, and it is very doubtful if that of the average farmer and his family falls very far below that enjoyed by the average breadwinner in other occupations. A high standard of living means a high standard of health, comfort, energy and efficiency. It gives us a high capacity to attract and absorb the best of British stock, thus increasing our national security and sharing our national debt. It means a high standard of achievement in education, arts and sciences, and building up a nation of something more than milkers, shearers and abattoir workers. When the bulk of the community can enjoy a high purchasing power there is national prosperity with full and free life for all. THE BOGEY OF HIGH WAGES Some farmers in their rural simplicity still cling to the exploded myth that the cost of production can only be lowered by reducing wages, and blindly ignore the plain and overwhelming evidence that labour-saving machinery, specialisation and standardisation, with improved business organisation and reduction of distribution costs, is the secret of modern low prices with high wages. The farmers are not suffering from high production costs in our factories here, and the busier our industrial plants become the cheaper their products will be to the farmer and everyone else. The farmer would be far wiser to listen to those qualified to advise him who w r ill point out that his excessive hours of labour and meagre returns are largely due to the inflated value of his land, and that inflation has not been pumped in by the tariff or the Arbitration Court. If the farmer is not getting a fair return he must turn his attention to improving his herds and his pastures. Like the manufacturer in the town, the country producer must realise that prosperity cannot come from cutting down wages and living standards, but only by securing more and more production from the same amount of human labour by improved methods and better organisation. —P.A.