The Timaru Herald. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1939 Workers In Danger

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVII, Issue 21508, 22 November 1939, Page 6

The Timaru Herald. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1939 Workers In Danger

IN Hamilton and Invercargill meetings of workers whose livelihood is threatened as a result of the new import restrictions have appealed to the Government asking that the restrictions should be relaxed. There can be little doubt that a fairly serious unemployment position will develop within the next three months. If shops have a smaller quantity of goods to sell it is clear that they will not be able to maintain their present staffs. Again, the effect of the import restrictions on wholesale businesses does not require explanation. Many people are going to be deprived of their source of income and in one way or another they will become charges upon the State. The Government must know what is going to happen and the only solace it can give itself is that the scourge of unemployment will fall upon new backs; but from the national viewpoint it does not matter where the scourge falls, for its effect is the same no matter what class is unemployed.

It is regrettable that the Government will not be able to answer the appeals made to it by shop assistants, for it has already decided that sterling exchange must be built up by the restriction of imports. The first attempts at import restriction failed and it has, therefore, been necessary to take much more drastic steps. Restrictions have been in force throughout the present year, but the imports for the first nine months of the current calendar year totalled £40,123,596, or only £480,000 less than for the same period in the previous year when there was no import control. During five six months ended June 30 of this year, the first period in which restrictions were in force imports were actually more than £1,000,000 greater than they had been in the first half of 1938. These figures show why it was necessary for the Government to make certain of checking the flow of imports into the country.

Import control will cause grave dislocation of business in the Dominion and those who are most concerned will probably have leisure to consider the causes of their lamentable plight. The Government in the past three years has done its utmost to encourage spending; to some extent it was justified in doing so, but the weakness in its policy was that it was designed to intensify a boom. Now that spending cannot be maintained by prosperous conditions the next move will be towards inflation. This is already taking place, but without benefit to anybody. Its only effect can be that wage-earners and others will have to pay more for the necessaries of life. Rising prices will impose wage cuts just as remorselessly as an Act of Parliament once did.