INDUSTRIAL HARMONY.

Wairarapa Age, 17 March 1925, Page 5

INDUSTRIAL HARMONY.

PROCURABLE AT A PRICE. LABOUR’S SACRIFICES. (Received 740 p.m.) .. , LONDON, March 15.—Labour leaders devoted the week-end to speeches replying to Mr Baldwin’s peace appeals. Mr J. B. Clynes declared that harmony was procurable at a price, including a decent standard of living and security in work. The only sacrifices of the past three years on behalf of British industry had been made by the wage-earners, who. lost £700,000,000 annually through wage reductions. If low wages was the minimum necessary, why not fix maximum profits for capital, which was taking too much out of industry to enrich those rendering little service to the community? NO TRUCE ON PRESENT PAY. MR. THOMAS’S REJOINDER. (Received 7.25 p.m.) LONDON, March 16.—Mr Thomas, speaking at Cardiff, said: “It would be madness to suggest an industrial truce with the workers receiving the scandalous pay of to-day, but if Mr Baldwin means that we have reached the stage when those genuinely anxious for the future are prepared to examine the facts, not as party men, but as citizens, then I welcome the spirit. ’ ’ True Basis of Brotherhood. Mr John Wheatley, at Glasgow, said he did not doubt Mr Baldwin’s sincerity, but it would be foolish to expect anything like brotherhood with the present basis of society. Mr Baldwin’s appeal was founded on bringing down the cost of production. “My criticism is that industry is not carried on in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount. Mr Baldwin’s appeal is mere air. The workers want a higher, not a lower, standard of living.”—(A. and N.Z.)