THE SHOE, PINCHES.

Observer, Volume XXVII, Issue 39, 15 June 1907, Page 2

THE SHOE, PINCHES.

The Rise in the Price of Bread.

THERE is scarcely room for doubt that the millers and bakers aTe taking undue advantage of the rise in wheat to force up the price of flour and bread. But it is difficult to see where the remedy lies. The Hon. J. A. Millar talks menacingly of legislative reprisal against trusts and combines, but the late Hon. Mr Seddon made weighty threats in the same direction, and, strong man though he was, found himself uuable to carry them into effect. Even the employers and capitalists have some rights left to them, and though these rights have been considerably curtailed, no law that was ever framed, or that, is likely to be framed, will prevent them from making trade agreements for their mutual advantage.

The trust or combine is the natural result of our present labour laws. We have encouraged the formation of trades unions, for the exaction of higher wages and shorter hours, and it follows as a natural consequence that the manufacturers and importers will also form unions or combines in order to obtain higher prices for their goods. The Law lias pointed out the way. How can the Law, with any degree of consistency, make it penal for the employers to do what the trades unionists have been encouraged to do ? We are fond of saying that there should not be one law for the rich and another law for the poor. On the same principle, it -is anomalous and uufair to propose one law for the employed and a different law for the employer.

If it is reasonable and right for the workman to fix his own rate of pay and hours of labour, without regard to the profits of his employer or the circumstances of the trade, it Gught to be equally competent for the employers to arrange a scale of prices that will ensure them a full measure of profit. This is what is happening now. The combine has not only been effected in the flour and bread trade, but it has also been brought about in regard to milk, tobacco, coal^ timber, and other commodities. This is all very hard on the working man, more especially as the combine is bound to extend to otner articles of daily use. But where is the remedy ? The employer is simply taking a leaf- out of the book of the trades unionist.

It has been suggested from trades union circles that the best method of penalizing and suppressing the' combine is to take the duties off the commodities covered by its operations and allow them to come into the country free. But this sort of thing cannot be done piecemeal. Also, the system, excellent enough an a whole, is certain to react on the trades unionists themselves if attempted in an incomplete fashion. For example, if the duty is taken off timber, the price would unquestionably fall, but hundreds of the mill hands who are at present enjoying the higher wages and shorter hours conferred by our labour laws would be thr.own out of employment. Again, take the duty oft wheat, and the farmer would be penalized, and deprived of

the higher prices for this product to which he is fairly entitled, though he would be still taxed by proteotive duties for the advantage of other branches of trades union labour.

It is most deplorable that the cost of living in New Zealand should continue to rise, whether as the result of trusts and combines, or from any other cause. But the fault lies not so much with the trust and combine as with the system under which one class of labour is forcing up the prices of commodities against all the other classes. It is each one for himself and the devil take the hiudmost. The Arbitration law set the ball rolling in the first instance. Each trade in turn has demanded and obtaiued higher wages and shorter hours, and is now demanding further advantages and concessions, and it follows as a natural consequence that the employers who are required to find these higher wages aDd concede these shorter hours will combine in order to compensate themselves. Their method of self-protec-tion is" really retaliation, and retaliation upon the consumer, who is the trades unionist, but that is the only direction in which the employer can compensate himself. After all, there was much truth in what Mr Ramsay Macdonald told the trades unionists of JSew Zealand when he said that what they should concern themselves with was the cost of living more than the rate of wages.