FOREIGN CONTRACTS

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14767, 5 October 1921, Page 3

FOREIGN CONTRACTS

—_— «j WAGES GO TO SWITZERLAND. (From Our Correspondent). LONDON, August 12. The Labour Parly here is as rabidly free-trade as am the old-faith Liberals ■who, in peace time, denounce coalition Government, and the Tories are only protectionist—tariff reformers they call themselves—in patches, taking cart: that no economic consideration, howex or sound in principle, shall be allowed adversely to ali'eet their own pockets. These things being understood, it is easy to realise why there is no protest ■.vorth talking about when the London County Council lets to a Swiss firm a lender for making an 8000 kilowatt turbine —for use at a Greenwich power station. Involved is an expenditure of shout £45,000. The accepted tender was 16 per cent, lower than the amount, of the nearest English tender, the difference being no less than £BOOO. Obviously, from the standpoint of the ratepayers' municipal purse, there is a strong case for the Swiss tender; but that is not the only standpoint, and it is easily arguable that it is not the standpoint at which one sees the ratepayers' real interests. The director of the British Engineering Association has written to the County Council saying that "at least 80 per cent, of the purchase price of such an order if made in this country' would be distributed in wages and salaries-" Does it then pay the country to send this money to Switzerland, there to provide profits for the contractors and wages for Swiss workmen? It is certain that at a time when the State is paying huge sums every week by way of unemployment allowance, we can illafford to send either profits or wagefund out. of the country, equally certain that the burden of this unremuneralive unemployment pay falls chiefly on those who arc ratepayers. Obviously the difference between the English and flic Swiss price is not. going to be all advantage to the ratepayers immediately concerned. Again, the English contractors, it may be safely assured, come within the orbit of those who have lo pay 6s in the £ income tax, while their wage-earners—on such a job practically all skilled men—pay a like tax at lower rates. The whole of Ihc income tax derivable from the execution of Hie contract is lost lo the British exchequer, and every such loss helps lo keep up the ratepayers' taxes. It is all very well to talk about Ihc advantages of competition, but the shop-keeper ratepayers with out-of-work customers do not find it necessarily advantageous to them or those it helps lo' pay their ■•ents. And it may be that the underling between employers and workmen here ought to be so good that English firms can successfully compete with Swiss or any others for English jobs. Meanwhile it is the irony of fate which deprives of, wages British workmen who carried guns for us in the vvar —and who are now expected to lend a hand in paying for the ammunition they tired ;•! the enemy—in order that profits may go to and wages be found from a country which, in its position of neutrality, did wonderfully well at the expense of its neighbours while the war was raging.