COMMON LEVEL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 259, 2 November 1932, Page 11

COMMON LEVEL

EMPLOYEES AND WORKERS SEARCH FOR NEW METHOD. “It will take some time before employers and workers will find a common level, but it is highly probably that when the distrust and misunderstanding have been removed it will be found to work much more satisfactorily than the old system. It can hardly fail to be an improvement on the conditions under which industry was gradually being brought to a standstill and unemployment was increasing with alarming rapidity,” stated Mr Albert Spencer, president of the Auckland Employers’ Association, in the bourse of his address to the annual meeting, when touching on the present system of dealing with industrial disputes by conciliation and the consequent limitation of the scope of the Arbitration Court. The position now, added Mr Spencer, was that employers and employees had been brought face to face, and the workers must realise that those who paid the wages must necessarily decide what amount of wages the industry could afford to pay. The fall of profits correspond very closely With the rise of unemployment, and restoration of prosperity was merely another name for restoration of the profits from industry. Profits could be restored either by a rise in prices or a reduction of costs, or a combination of both. Business men had been endeavouring to rectify the position by reducing their overhead costs —a distasteful course because it involved the reductions of wages and sacrifices all round. "This country, with its small population, is over-governed, over-staffed, over taxed, and requires drastic curtailment of expenditure, and all Government Departments overhauled. It has gradually come home to the community that a sweeping curtailment of the army of Government inspectors is long

overdue,” said Mr Spencer in urging a reduction of Government expenditure. “These inspectors are constantly

travelling all over the country, and arc largely the cause of curtailing industry bv harassing employers, with the re-

suit that labour costs have been cut down, causing a further increase of unemployment. The Government could very well employ itself next session in undoing the many ridiculous laws that it has passed during the last few years. A long list of hampering laws that should be repealed could be made out. This small country is weighed down and staggering under excessive Government interference with private industry.”