Wages and Prices — the Labour View The Trades Union Congress General
Council makes its comment on the "vicious spiral" of ascending prices and wages in an official report to the affiliated unions. It denies the responsibility of the unions in starting the "vicious spiral," which began, it points out, with the increase in prices ; and the only remedy it offers is a stricter control of prices and a more rigid control of profits. Un- doubtedly it expresses popular feeling when it demands restriction of profits, but it takes insufficient account of the part played by increased labour costs in raising prices. If all profiteering were eliminated—and it is just to press that side of the question—there would still remain the danger of the ever-upward movement of prices in response to repeated successes of individual unions in getting higher wages. It is a now recognised fact that diminished con- sumption for the nation as a whole is inevitable under war zonditions. The question is to what extent this drawback must be shared by the poorer classes. Mr. L. J. Cadbury has made the suggestion, put forward by Mr. Philip Frank in these columns recently, that a flat-rate war bonus paid to all workers to mitigate the effects of higher prices would have the desired effect of benefiting the poorest workers most. If this were substituted for spasmodic wage increases in one industry after another, labour costs and prices might both be stabilised. Proposals such as this ought to be carefully considered ; but it cannot be too strongly insisted that they cannot succeed unless other elements in price- fixing—notably profiteering—are severely and consistently controlled.
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