The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 1909. PRODUCTIVENESS OF LABOR .

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2526, 12 June 1909, Page 4

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 1909. PRODUCTIVENESS OF LABOR .

As was shown long ago in the famous French parable of the broken window pane, nearsightedness is the chief cause of the economic errors which so grievously retard industrial progress. When Jacques Bonhomme’s scapegrace son smashed a window', the. neighbors tried to console the honest burgess with the thought that such accidents were good for trade. Tli glazier came, replaced the pane, and joyfully pocketed his six francs. His trade had benefited to the extent of six francs. That was all that lie or the worthy Jacques Bonhomme’s neighbors saw. If the pane had not been broken, Jacques would still have had his window, and liis six (francs would have been spent in buying a nesw pair of shoes or a new book. That was what they did not sec. A like inability to look beyond the conspicuous facts under observation, at the moment, accounts for the extraordinary efforts which trade unions make to limit the amount of- work done. In another column a short article describes some of the tyrannous rules imposed on workers by American unions and their despotic “walking delegates.” No hod-carrier, for example, is allowed to use, more than one hand in filling his hod. Nature has provided him with two in order that ho may do a man’s work, but the union says that he must not employ the talents which he has been .given in the world’s service. He is to become only half a man, a onehanded cripple, at work, though he may use both freely at play. This deliberate 1 lowering of the hodcarrier’s efficiency is the outcome of a near-sighted policy based upon a widespread economic fallacy. The unions or, at any rate, some of them, seem to think that it is a good thing for the wage-earners ir each man docs as little as possible during his hours of employment. .There will then, they say, ho more men employed on the job, and a greater total of wages taken out of the employers. The same error prompted the .Wellington Trades and Labor Council to protest 1 recently • against the offer of jin “exertion wage” to men engaged upon the Otira tunnel. In this amazing case we actually find a labor organisation, whose primary 'purpose is surely to secure the best wages it can for workers, beseeching Ministers to prevent employers from paying as much as they were willing to P a J • Rates of pay for the men on the tunnel were fixed by an Arbitration Couit award. The contractors to whom the Government had entrusted tho work were desirous of getting on quickly with it, and so offered to good workers a premium above tlie court rate if they did more than a fixed, amount of tunnelling a day. Such encouragement to ability" and industry roused the wrath of tho Wellington council, which asked tho Government to interfere-. When tho Government .replied that it could not, if it would, impose new conditions upon the contractors, the council re-

quested the Prime Minister, Sir Joseph TVard, to put, in all future contracts a clause forbidding payment of exertion wages. Sir Joseph TVard promptly rejected the preposterous proposal, but the significance of the incident lies in the obvious wish of the council to prevent good men from working up to their capacity. No reasonable person will quarrel with Labor Unions for exerting themselves to the utmost to conserve the interests of the worker so long as their energies are confined to legitimate aims. Thus the object of the Arbitration system in stipulating for a “Jiving wage” is entirely praiseworthy. It does not follow that tiho minimum wage principle embodied in the Arbitration Act is the best means of obtaining the desired end, but it can bo laid down as the soundest of axioms that the occupation which, after reasonable protection against foreign competition has been granted by a tariff charge, will not yield to those concerned in it sufficient remuneration for decent and comfortable living is one that should be expunged from the Dominion’s industries. Again, a particular industry may bo yielding enormous profits to its owners. The workers are fu'ly justified in seeking by all legal means to secure a fair share of these lucrative returns. Here the problem is a most difficult one, but the man who works eight hours per day can scarcely be blamed if ho is dissatisfied with an arrangement which only gives lnm ten shillings whist his employer takes a thousand a year and lives in ostentations wealth There are very serious considerations which enter into this aspect of industrialism and liavo to bo reckoned with before a solution can bo suggested, but that does not alter the fact that under existing circumstances grave injustice often exists and the Laborites would be false-to then own interests if they did not endeavjr to bring about an alteration. Any efforts, however, which have the effect of lessening individual production must ultimately fail to improve the lot of the worker, although temporary success may here and there be achieved. The men’s wages have to be taken from, their own production, and it is obvious that the smaller their productiveness the lesser amount there is to be divided up between the workmen and their employers. The fact that under existing circumstances workmen do not always get a fair share of the proceeds of their toil is not a sufficient reason for labor as a whole deciding to restrict -its output. The chief consequences of such an attitude are to render unprofitable somo industries in which the* men are being fairly treated, worse still to bring about the degeneration of the workman, and finally to impoverish the community.