PRICES AND WAGES.

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 17965, 10 March 1930, Page 9

PRICES AND WAGES.

KEY TO UNEMPLOYMENT PUZZLE. “A NATIONAL SICKNESS.’’ “One oannot dissent from the suggestion that much labour might be profitably absorbed in roading, furproduction, and afforestation, but after all these avenues of employment would ease the siuation to but a small extent,” stated Mr G. Shirtclffe, in reviewing the report of the Special Gom- •’ mittee set up by the Government to investigate unemployment. Mr Shirtcliffe said all would be in accord with the finding that unemployment was not a passing phase, but was under present conditions a permanent and increasing problem. He believed the root causes of the existing condition could be broadly classified under four headings. In the first place, the demand for labour could not be satisfied owing to high costs rendering it uneconomic. Secondly, the high standard of living which had become customary made it exceedingly difficult for employers to obtain, or for workers to accept, lower wages. Again, the increasing mechanisation of industry was gradually reducing the call for manual labour. In the last place, the gradual deflation of prices for primary products made it impossible for farmers to incur present labour costs economically. "In my judgment the prices for primary products will only be stabilised in the vicinity of pre-war level,” Mr Shirtcliffe added. “It must appear to most thinking Deople that if an individual business could not carry on profitably, and could not raise its selling prices, it must either reduce its production costs or close down. That is just the position with out national primary industries. They, for the most part, are not profitable to-day owing to heavy, taxation, to some extent attributable to the inordinate growth of the Civil Service, the high cost of land, and consequently of interest, and the high cost of labour. "It is quite certain that the country cannot continue on the basis of prewar prices for commodities produced at post-war costs. "Of the committee’s recommendation that an insurance fund should be established, to which all sections of the community would subscribe, all that can be said is that it would be only a palliative at the cost of the general community. It can be imagined that the scheme would he subject to abuse, political and otherwise. It would not cure the trouble, but might easily tend to perpetuate it. If a medical man has a very sick patient he seeks to ascertain and remove the cause of the trouble, and not to keep the patient alive by a course of tonic trealment. “Unemployment in its present, volume is, I suggest, a state of national sickness, and therefore every effort should be made to ascertain and remove its causes. In that direction I am convinced lies the possible remedy for unemployment.”