THE OUTLOOK

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19437, 24 October 1925, Page 12

THE OUTLOOK

INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS EFFECTS OF THE STRIKE HOW TO SOLVE THE PRESENT PROBLEMS. At the annual meeting of the Employers’ Federation, held yesterday at Wellington, a thoughtful address was given by the president, Mr T. Shailer Weston, who made it his business to review industrial conditions. The following arts' portions" of Mr. Weston’s speech:— Last year 1 ventured, after consultation with Mr. Malcolm Fraser, the Government Statistician, to predict that the savings of New Zealand by all classes for the twelve months then ensuing, would be at least £10,000,000. That this has been fulfilled, the increases shown on the Government Savings Bank deposits and the local Sayings Bank deposits, in the fixed and free deposits with the banks, the Public Trustee, the investment societies and other bodies receiving deposits, the growth in .accumulated life insurance funds and other outlets for our savings, all go to prove. Although weather conditions this spring have not been favourable and the chances are that the average prices for wool will be lower this coming season than the last, yet, given settled conditions of industry the prospects were that the coining year would have seen another large addition to the nation’s savings and the. whole country almost completely clear of the consequences of the post-war slump of five years ago. Large amounts of public and local body loans during the last five years spent in hydro-electric undertakings, railway extensions and improvements, highways, and irrigation works, with the completion of these works have become interest-earning and, therefore, selfsupporting. The natural advantages of this country, particularly its wonderful climate, the homogeneity of its population and its ordered Government have begun to attract immigrants of the right sort in increased numbers and also foreign capital for investment. Given a continuance of a strong responsible Government and absence of internal industrial strife the outlook for a prosperous future for this Dominion in August had never been more favourable. The Strike Handicap. The seamen’s strike has, however, greatly altered these prospects for the immediate' future. The refusal of a minority of the seamen to abide by the decisions of their executive resulted in a complete stoppage of our overseas trade. But for the unanimous determination of the primary producers and general public that this stoppage should not be allowed to paralyse our export trade this strike would have continued and the Dominion would have suffered a catastrophe equalling the economic debacle of 1921. Although that prompt action has prevented a catastrophe this strike has still been a serious calamity to New Zealand. The regularity of shipping aimed at by the Meat and Dairy Produce Boards is now impossible for this reason. Our early lamb trade will be seriously affected—our local wool sales will be sluggish owing to lack of shipping space—storage charges on all produce will be increased, and dairy produce, owing to the delay, will bo thrown upon the London market at a time when supplies from the Continent in the early northern spring will be in competition. Unless the northern hemisphere experiences a* bad spring it can be safely said that before our present season is over the shipping strike will have cost the farmers alone some hundreds of thousands of pounds, the revenue of the country will be lessened and the normal increase#of savings checked. If the present local Government loan of £5,000,000 so urgently required to assist the small farmer and for workers’ dwellings is not completely subscribed it will be in the main the result of this strike. If minorities of unions continue to break industrial agreements and awards, and if extremists encourage and assist them in so doing the consequent suffering may, in time, induce nations to treat such actions as offences against the public weal to be met with heavy punishment. Personally I would prefer that in New Zealand the forc«? of public opinion should be a sufficient deterrent. Our community is highly educated, and the evils consequent upon sectional and irritation strikoa are so clear and convincing that the general public should be prompt in expressing itself and ruthless in preventing their continuance. No section of the community can afford to estrange itself from the rest of its fellow-citi-zens. Once public opinion learns from past losses and sufferings to make it•self felt promptly and decisively, oue section of the community will hesitate long before declining to play the part allotted to its members in the scheme of subdivision of labour. It is so easy a task by sectional and irritation strikes to throw the modern industrial machine out of gear that the deterrent punishment must be correspondingly effective.

Electors in New Zealand will do well to watch closely the legislative efforts of the Now South Wales and Queensland Labour Parliaments duriug the next few years. It may well be that the results of their legislation will be to deter other English-speaking communities following in their footsteps. At the same time it is amazing how little attention is paid to the experience of others. One of the remedies suggested by Labour leaders for. the present seamen’s strike is a New Zealand State Shipping Line. Only this year, however, the various Australian Seamen’s Unions have authorised repeated strikes against the Federal Government’s overseas ships, although paying Australian wages and run on Australian conditions. State control has not satisfied the crews of these ships and they have endeavoured to establish Job Control. Only the threat of the Federal Government to sell the ships has secured for this line a temporary respite from industrial stoppages. It is so often overlooked by critics that the pay of English maritime workers is fixed by competition with all the world. New Zealand and Australian maritime coastal rates of pay and conditions are possible only because such trade is protected from outside competition. This protection enables the coastal companies to impose charges which permit of these rates of pay. Coastal freights from Sydney to

Fremantle are, for example, in many eases higher than from England or Europe to Fremantle. These high coastal rates of wages can be justified because they are on a party with the universal standard of living in Australia and New Zealand, both new countries. If, however, the overseas State shipping proposal for New Zealand is to pay its men similar rates, then New Zealand overseas State shipping must either be run at a loss or farmers must be prohibited from shipping by English or foreign-owned ships and compelled to pay higher freights ■ for transport on New Zealand Govern-j ment-owned ships. In the first alternative the farmers will have to contri- j bute through taxation to such loss —in the latter case he will, through higher freights, realise less for his produce. State shipping with New Zealand rates of pay, as advocated by Labour leaders, will in either event mean a loss to the farmer, and if the Australian State line is a guide, will have to face industrial trouble with its employees. Last year I ventured to assert that I was more than ever convinced that the best chance of permanently improving the standard of living of workers in New Zealand during the next ten years lay in Labour leaders concentrating their efforts on maintaining the present rates of money wages and on counteracting the tendency of such rates of money wages io fall as prices of manufactured articles and food products fall, by impressing upon workers individually the absolute necessity for furnishing steady, honest and loyal effort, free from strikes and go-slow. With the great growth and improvemeat in output of secondary industries throughout the world due to new and improved machinery, plant and methods, the price of nlanufactured articles must inevitably fall. The opening up of new areas for agriculture, more intensive cultivation of old areas, better and cheaper transit facilities, and the study and development of agricultural science will probably result in a gradual fall in food prices. The recent return to the gold standard throughout the British Empire will assist this movement. The present cost of living Index Number is 163 as compared with 100 in 1914. If trade union leaders would conclude a truce, to lasi; three years, with the Employers’ Asso ciations, on the maintainance of wages by both sides at the rates fixed by present awards, modified where necessary to conform with the recent pronouncement of the Arbitration Court and would see that irritation strikes and other wasteful industrial tactics were avoided, I am certain that this cost of living index would be reduced at least 20 points. A reduction of 20' points would mean that money wages would purchase one-eighth more than they do to-day, i.e., real wages would be increased one-eighth or 12$ per cent. A rise of 12J per cent, is a good one. It would make the present basic rate m New Zealand, viz. £4 per week, worth £4 10s. through increased purchasing power. In Queensland after six years rule of a Labour Government, the

basic rate as passed by the Arbitration Court was only £4. The utmost the Queensland Labour Government could do by Statute, and that very reluctantly, was to make this £4, £4 ss. Surely, in face of these figures, the plan I venture to suggest is worth a trial. The new President of the A.S.R.S. announced some months back that he proposed to endeavour to work with and not against the Government, to consult its interests and to loyalty cooperate with it in its efforts to run the New Zealand railways at a profit. Surely other trade union leaders in New Zealand might adopt a similar course. If they do this I am sure that all employers will be prepared to meet them, and if that policy is faithfully adhered to by both sides and, above all, encouraged by the leaders on both sides, I am confident that the beneficial results all round will astonish any reasonable observer.