CURE FOR STRIKES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16305, 21 December 1920, Page 6

CURE FOR STRIKES.

LABOUR LEADER POINTS THE WAY. SALVATION IN PRODUCTION LESSON THE WORKER MUST LEARN. tr'asl'ed Labour leader, Mr Karnes, M-i.j )or some time a Cabinet Minisft 1 ’ i) Ono Britain’s signatories of tho leace Treaty, shows in this striking article in the “Sunday Herald” that wages can never overtake prices until production is' increased. That our nation has arrived at the most serious crisis of its existence ia not to bo doubted 1 People are suffering more or less from nervous tension as a legacy of the war. Tho “voice of Labour” (beloved phrase) breaks with incoherent discord upon tho ears of the community in throats of strikes and revolution. Those who claim to bo its spokesmen demand that .Labour (meaning manual labour) should control not only industry but society itself—and this with the" sorry spectacle of bleeding 'Russia lying in a welter of ruin before their very eyes 11 The economic disorders from which this country is suffering may be grouped together under a common name—The High Cost of Living. We are suffering from the High Cost of Living. Good!—then wages must lie raised to catch up with it! Up goes the cost of living again—and again they apply the salves of higher wages. ‘Mid so the mad chase goes onWhy does tho cost of living go up in response to higher wages? Simply because higher wages have got to be paid tor. And in the end the worker has to toot the bill himself —by paying more for everything ho oats, drinks, wears, or otherwise makes use of. 'There is only one way in which the worker can avoid paying his own increased wages. That is by producing more of the commodities ho consumes. Increased production does .not mean less work for him and his fellows; it means more work, and is tho only way to pull down the present high cost ol living. We have to buy most of our food from foreign countries. Obviously, wo liavo got to pay for it. How do wo pay for it? Simply with the goods wo ourselves make and" sell to the foreigners. The products of Labour are a country’s only wealth. , It is because we are producing so little, comparatively, that the nation is so poor today. The whole world is an economic unit, each country interdependent upon the other for its very life's blood, and to that exeat Lenin is right; for revolution, to bo successful, must be revolution throughout the world. ( The masses are justified in protesting against the misery and want existing in our midst’; they are justified in demanding a fair share of the products of their labour; but—let them bo- certain that tho methods they adopt to gam their ends are also justified. The bogey of over-production must be ruthlessly exposed. So long as there is a single child hi need of food, clothing, or shelter, there cannot have been over-production. There can be too little of some things produced, and 100 much of others. . T’or example, at the present moment there are bootmakers out of work because boots have been produced in such abundance. Yet inert* are thousands bootless! On the other hand, there is a great demand for houses, and thousands of builders are unemployed.Now if those builders were employed in building houses, the builders would be able to buy the surplus boots; there would bo more employment and prosperity in the boot trade; there would also be more houses for the bootmakers to live in. -Nowadays, employers and workers are both well organised, and because of this they should be capable of applying their powers to industry in a collective sense. It must be realised that the good of one sido cannot be bought at the expense of tho other. Discontent and unrest are bound to result from such a policy. The cry for restricted production is based on a fallacy, and our weakness just now is lack of quantity. We are growing less food, and are having to import more; wo are less able to pay lor it because of lessened production and cost. One means of lessening cost is by mass-production. We must work our machines harder and better in order to pay for the greater amount of food we must import if the cost of living is to be cheaper. Ho long as you have employer against employer and worker against worker and finally a continual bitter war goiim on between employer and worker, this organisation of production cannot be obtained. There must be better understanding between all concerned: tho secrecy which breeds mistrust must be done away with, and an intelligent cooperation must take its place. Wo must produce I And w e must produce ni quantity if our workers are to have adequate wages, mid w™T compete with our foreign rivals Mork means prosperity, strikes mean idleness, and idleness means poverty.