Taranaki Herald. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1910. LABOUR AND CAPITAL.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 14347, 27 October 1910, Page 2

Taranaki Herald. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1910. LABOUR AND CAPITAL.

The annual report of the Employers’ Federation, submitted at the annual meeting' held in Wellington yesterday, helps to explain why, in the face of so much prosperity in New Zealand, there is such reluctance on the part of those, with money to invest to embark upon industrial enterprises, preferring to keep their money lying idle, while awaiting some form of investment which offers greater security, or pending an indication of the direction in which new labour legislation will go. . The report admits that there have occurred no large industrial upheavals during the past year, but adds tbai-' neither has there been any cessa-x tion of the continuous demands for higher wages and shorter hours. On the contrary, these demands are liecoming more insistent and persistent than ever, and there are, it is said, indications that organised labour, having squeezed all it can out of Parliament, is now preparing, in the belief that it holds the power, to go hack to the old order of things and enforce its demands without reference to Acts of Parliament or Arbitration Courts. That there is some ground for this belief is proved by the recent remark of a labour representative, in connection, if we remember lightly, with the demands of the shearers, that they would not abide by the decision of the Arbitration Court if It did not give them what they wanted and thought they ought to get. For many years now employers of labour have had to submit from time to time to adverse awards of the Arbitration Court, which have in many cases made such inroads upon their profits that they have had little or no return for their capital invested and received a smaller recompense for their time and labour than some of their employees. There are scores of manufacturers who only continue their operations because their capital is locked up and they cannot release it, so they go on, hoping for better times. Instead of bettor times, however, they find that “Labour’s demands are becoming more insistent and persistent than ever.” In Sydney the other day the president of the Chamber of Manufacturers said that already the men dictated as to hours, wages, and the class of labour they were to be employed at. The next step would be governing of the profits, and. once that point was reached, the final step would be in the direction of laying hands on the profits, on the plea that the individual welfare should yield to national interests. The same speaker expressed the opinion that in the near future they would have to face an attempt at the wholesale nationalisation of all sources of industrial wealth, and asked who, having capital and life interests in any industry, would calmly submit to such revolutionary methods Y Of course, it may be retorted that the employers are unnecessarily alarming themselves, and that there is no human likelihood of such a revolution being effected for very many years. It may be said also that the employees have no thought of acting unfairly. Yet one has only to examine the official platform of organised labour to find proposals for the nationalisation of industries, entailing something like confiscation or ruin of private enterprises. In any case there is ample evidence that people with capital invested or to invest are very anxious about the future and inclined to divert their money elsewhere. Without capital labour is almost helpless. As a well-known American remarked recently, capital is the mainspring of all industry and material development, and

when capital is penalised beyond what it can bear the labourer suffers even more than the capitalist. We, do not expect labour to have much consideration for capital; we may even go so far as to grant that in the past capital has too often been the oppressor of labour; but for their own sake employees should consider well the effect of the policy their organisations are pursuing. In New Zealand manufacturers have declared, and their statements are borne out by actualfacts, that their industries are becoming unprofitable owing to the increasing demands of labour and that it pays them better to import than to manufacture. Again, at Newcastle, since the great minors’ strike, the coal export has steadily decreased, and the situation is causing much anxiety to miners as well as mine-owners. The fact is that a large proportion of the trade has gone to Japan and elsewhere. So it will be with New Zealand industries, unless a halt is called by labour in its demands. We are not and cannot be selfcontained and independent of other countries. Our industries are heavily protected naturally and artificially, by distance from other countries and by tariffs, but there is a point beyond which this protection cannot go, when the cheaper labour and greater manufacturing facilities of other countries must overcome all obstacles and force the local industry to succumb. That is what labour may expect, if it persists in a course which will drive capital out of the existing partnership. The tendency in other countries, European and Eastern, is in the direction of higher wages and better conditions of labour, and if labour in New Zealand has patience it will find the pressure of cheap foreign competition growing less severe. The fight for higher wages should be worldwide; for a small section to push too far ahead may end in defeat and disaster.