THE SAD PLIGHT OP AUSTRALIA.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 18763, 30 December 1930, Page 12

THE SAD PLIGHT OP AUSTRALIA.

To the Editor of the “ Timaru Herald.” Sir, —Reflective men are wondering how it has come about that Australia, a veritable land of Goshen, is finding it impossible to make ends meet although her people are both skilful and industrious. There, as well as here, and everywhere else, the Chamber of Commerce explanation is that it is because the cost of production is too high; and the cost of production is high because the wages paid to* Labour are too high. The remedy, therefore, is to lower wages. Here, then, we have the diagnosis of the disease from which Australia is supposed to be suffering; and, if the diagnosis is correct, the remedy suggested is undoubtedly the right one. But, is this commercial diagnosis correct? No; it is very far from being so. The diagnosticians have mistaken a symptom of the disease for the disease itself. The disease from which Australia and every other borrowing country is suffering, is economic haemorrhage, which no wage-cutting, lengthening of the working day, speeding up or thrift can possibly stanch, or even lessen in the slightest degree. Your readers may get some idea of the exact nature of this disease from the following : When Australia had a population of 5,000,000, her external debts per capita, amounted to £420; or £2IOO for every family of five. The annual interest on this latter sum, was £145 17/2, or slightly over £2 16/- a week. The nominal weekly wage of the bread-winner was £4. Deduct £2 16/- from this, and a balance of £1 4/- is left. Now, deduct only 4/- for tradesmens’ profits, and we arrive at the real wage of £l, which these heads of Australian working class families received. Here we see that three pounds of every four which were given to those men, as wages, merely passed through their fingers on their way to the moneylenders, and were not wages at all, and should not have been treated as such. A million and a half breadwinners in Australia are then, working two hours in eight for themselves, and six for those who hold them in bondage. This is the new form of slavery wb*ch has taken the place of the old. it has simply shifted from ownership of the worker’s body, to of his earnings; and, it has

been estimated that negro slaves working on the plantations of Virginia and Georgia, Kentucky and Louisiana, gave less of the fruits of their labours to their owners, than modern workers give to their country’s creditors, who are their masters.

But, this is not all. The money-lend-ers referred to, by virtue of their having acquired control of the world’s insufficient supply of legal money, namely gold, are in the position of being able to make or break markets at will. Last year, they broke the market for Australian produce, thereby cheating Australian farmers out of £4,200,000,000. And, what they did to Australia last year, they can do anywhere, and at any time. At present they are engaged in an economic war, which is accountable for the depressed condition of trade, and no amount of optimism will end that war.

To curtail the power of these men the nations must utilise their own superior credit, and no longer continue relying on the insecure credit of a few outsiders, who own far less gold than is generally known.—l am, etc., ECONOMIST.