A DISHONEST POLICY.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 August 1930, Page 10

A DISHONEST POLICY.

It would be difficult to suggest anything less likely to assist in the financial recovery of Australia than the reported recommendations of organised Labour in New South Wales. In. that State the strength of Labour organisations is greater than in auy other portion of the Commonwealth, and in point of numbers some trade unions there are larger than in all the other States combined. A pronouncement by Labour leaders in New South Wales is therefore likely to be accepted as an indication of what Commonwealth. ' industrialists are likely to endorse. It is to be feared the recommendations will have an unhappy effect upon Australia’s creditors. It has been shown beyond shadow of doubt that the Commonwealth has been living beyond its means and that costs of production, among which the wages paid for certain classes of work is a most important item, must be drastically reduced. Labour’s latest attitude to this is that of the ostrich with its head in the sand. It refuses to look at the facts and shape its course accordingly. On the contrary, it suggests a continuance of the present rates of wages “regardless of the financial situation,” a postponement of the payments due to some oversea creditors and an absolute repudiation of war' debts. One wonders if it ever occurs to Labour leaders that had the Empire lost the Great War the conditions of labour would have been considerably harsher than under British rule, and that not only the debts incurred for the defence of the Commonwealth but whatever additional burden the victor saw fit to impose would, very largely, have had to be paid by the proletariat. What the Labour Government, upon which rests at present th© responsibility of rescuing the national finances from chaos, thinks of the attitude of the rank and file would be hard to imagine. If bankruptcy is preferred to honest effort to meet liabilities there is little hope for the Commonwealth. Fortunately organised Labour does not by any means represent Australia as a whole, though its power for mischief is none th© less serious. Australians are not likely to lose their balance or their self-respect at th© behest of the Sydney Trades Hall, but it seems almost a tragedy that when a Labour Government is appealing for a national effort to cope with an emergency it should meet with such a rebuff from those who should be foremost in that endeavour.