More Wealth Needed.

I have not adduced these figures to show that the general level of the wages of labour cannot be raised. I think it can, but I wanted to clear the ground for a discussion of the means by which this end can be effected, and to demonstrate that unless more wealth is produced both by increased effort and cooperation on the part of both employers and employed, there is not much prospect of any marked rise in the general level of the workers' wages. Is there room for this increased effort and cooperation? Assuredly there is. Walker shows in the text book I have referred to what business ability can do both in saving waste and promotion of production and incidentally he establishes the fact that some of the worst enemies of the workers are the incapable and blundering employers. The average business ability of this country is high—the average industrial efficiency of the workers is high, as may be well inferred if only from the intelligence and physical stamina of our people.

But do the human agencies of production produce in service or commodities the fair and reasonable maximum of their capacities? I am certain they do not, and the one great desideratum now in N.Z. is some inducement, satisfactory to both the great agents—employer and workers—to establish and maintain that genuine co-operation which will produce the best results. I believe that desideratum can be at least largely supplied by an improved Arbitration Act.

Now, before I proceed to show this, let me ask you to recognise that our Arbitration Act has served, and must now serve, two purposes which are distinct. First it now discharges the function of a standard wage regulator. A kind of State Wages Board to which—and not to their employers—the workers in practice appeal to fix a fair wage. This appeal is not made to prevent a strike for there is rarely a genuine dispute, and the function of the tribunal has become that of saying what the State (as represented by the Court, or at any rate the president) thinks the standard wage should be.

The second function which the Act is asked to discharge is strike prevention by pains and penalties. I propose to consider the functions separately.