SACRIFICES MUST BE MADE BY COMMUNITY AS A WHOLE

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 63, 16 March 1931, Page 7

SACRIFICES MUST BE MADE BY COMMUNITY AS A WHOLE

President Of Chamber Of Commerce Reviews World Economic Problems.

THE ECONOMIC PROBLEMS at present facing the world ■were reviewed by Mr H. S. E. Turner, president of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce, at the quarterly luncheon of the Chamber held to-day. Mr Turner emphasised that in New Zealand sacrifices must be made, but they were sacrifices which in the long run, he felt sure, would be found to be more apparent than real. By that he meant that eventually it would be found that our essential standard of living—whatever money values may be—■would not have suffered any damage that mattered.

“ Careful reading of the * N.Z. Worker ’ during the past few months convinces me,” Mr Turner added, “ that the workers in this Dominion are being misled into believing the fallacy that money in itself is of value. Intrinsically, most of it is scarcely worth using to paper a whare; the real value of money is what it will buy. Standard Of Living. “ The maintenance of a certain standard of living is not dependent on the maintenance of a certain standard of money wages. Very broadly speaking, I submit the standard of living is determined by the standard of production. Producers, whether from the land or from the factory, do not produce in order that their goods may .be put in the museum; they produce in order that their goods may be consumed or used. )

“ Invention and enterprise, if not discouraged or hampered, will continue the progress made during the past hundred years, and the result will be more things to consume by the community and, consequently, a progressive improvement in the standard of living of all classes. This will result independently of any standards of money wages. If the reduction of costs, including wages, causes a qualitative reduction in the amount of money in circulation, then the goods will still be sold, but at lower prices. This result will not follow immediately, as though a magic wand was waved, but it will follow surely. Equality Of Sacrifice. “In the meantime, however, we have to meet the immediate problem of our reduced national money income, and our belief in the future must not weaken our resolve to tackle, otherwise we shall not be in a proper state to go forward when the road is open again. “Trades Union leaders are saying today—are misleading their followers into believing—that they alone are being expected to make sacrifices. Either from ignorance or for some purpose they take no account of these facts: — “Investors in industrial concerns have already made and are making large sacrifices in the depreciation of share values and the loss of dividends. “Mortgagees have made and are making losses in principal and interest.

“Large sections of the salaried classes have willingly accepted reduced salaries. “The professional classes are suable to collect their usual income. “Manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers, in most cases, are taking heavy losses on stocks and on overhead expenses unrelated to a diminished turnover. “And lastly, but most certainly of all, the primary producers of this country are facing temporarily a total disappearance of net income. “A sense of fair play will, I believe, soon make it clear to those who have not already made any sacrifices that they should not, even if they could, refuse to take their share of the burden. Pessimism or Optimism. “The words ‘pessimism* and ‘optimism’ are being freely used to-day, and I would like to say this?— “ If a pessimist is a man who says that all is lost, that the Empire is breaking up and that New Zealand must settle down into a peasant community, then we in the Chamber of Commerce are not pessimists. If an optimist is a man who says the slump is nearly over and prices will soon, soar and that all we have to do is to sit tight and do nothing but wait for the recovery, then we are not optimists. “We are pessimistic enough to say that we are in temporary difficulties lower money values and that everylower mone yvalues and that everybody must help in the adjustment; and yet optimistic enough to feel that, although the position is bad, it might be worse; that it can certainly be tided over if everybody helps; that conditions will improve fairly soon and that eventually New Zealand will not suffer any real diminution in her standard of living, but rather the reverse. The Future. “ In a time of depression, especially such a depression as we are going through now, it is not easy to examine the problem, shall I say, philosophically, but it should be possible for us even to-day to realise an economic truth that has long been accepted—that depression produces of itself the conditions that restore prosperity. In conclusion, I believe that when the accounts come to be added up for this period it will be found that the Chamber of Commerce were better friends of Labour than were the trades unions.”