THE EXPENSE OF INDUSTRIAL PEACE.
A CORRESPONDENT of the Melbourne "Age," writing from New Zealand, on Industrial Arbitration as he found it in that land where experimental politics are carried further, perhaps, than in any other country, has penned the following striking sentences: Like many other people in Australia and elsewhere, I had supposed before taking up my residence here that arbitration, by putting an end to industrial war, had created ideal social conditions. Study of the subject on the spot soon caused doubts to arise, and now it is a question with me whether industrial war is not healthier and less costly than industrial peace attended with commercial brigandage. As employers have been forced to pay increased wages, the prices of all kinds of commodities have also increased, and landlords have availed themselves of the enhanced values of commodities by raising rents, so that Mr. Tregear, the secretary of the Labor Department, admits in an official report that "the increase in the cost of living has nullified the benefits of industrial arbitration." When the facts of the case are carefully examined it will, however, be found that the working man in New Zealand is actually worse off now than when he got his first award, for, according to Mr. Coglan, the New South Wales Government Statistician, while wages in New Zealand have advanced 8½ per cent., prices of foodstuffs, house rents, and other necessary things have advanced as follows: Meat, 100 per cent.; house rent, 30 to 50 per cent., and other things, 10 to 15 per cent. A remedy for these results, which were not foreseen, and, therefore, were unprovided for, is now being sought by many prominent New Zealanders; but apparently the only way out, which has yet been proposed, is the adoption of the socialistic principle of state industries. It remains to be seen whether New Zealand is prepared to make any further experiments of a radical nature.—Australasian Signs of the Times.