BUSINESS AND BROTHERLY LOVE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13487, 30 July 1907, Page 2

BUSINESS AND BROTHERLY LOVE.

THE WAGES QUESTION.

A statement by the President of the Chicago Great Western Railway, A. B. Stickney, under the heading "No Room for Brotherly Love in Business " appears in Christchurch Truth. Mr Stickney writes : — "In. these later days, as in all ages which have passed, there are people who believe that the rewards of industry could be divided more equitably by brotherly love or by legislation than by the natural law of distribution. I never have seen much of an exhibition of the effects of brotherly love in commercial affairs, and my opinion is that if the president of the Chicago Great Western railway should attempt to run it on brotherly love, the road would be scalped bareheaded in thirty minutes, and at the end of the month there would foe no money in the treasury with , which to pay wages. Brotherly love in economical affairs is a dream for the "sweet by and bye." Attempts to control or modify the natural law of distribution by legislation have been frequently made. The pages of history are full of such legislation. •Five, centuries .ago agriculture was practically the only occupation of England, and the labourers had just ;emerged from serfdom. The landowners were the employers and lawmakers. Within about three years imore than half of the labourers in died with plague. The ravages of the disease disorganised economic affairs, production almost ceased, and famine was imminent. , The small supply made food dear, and the decrease in the number of labourers increased wages. Regarding money as the compensation, wages had perhaps quadrupled, but food having advanced in the same ratio, a day's wages would buy substantially the same amount of food as before the plague. But the ignorant land owners, who could see only that they were paying several times as much money for a day's labour, undertook the task of reducing wages to the money standard before the plague, without reducing the price of food. It was an impossible task, because at such prices a day's labour would not produce a day's food.