Evening Post. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1914.

LIVING WAGE AND STATISTICS »- -ii on«o n «- In 1907 Mr. Justice Higgins,s President of the Federal Arbitration Court, seeking to find a basis for a living wage, laid it down that the standard should be " the normal needs of the average employee regarded as a human being living in a civilised community." That, principle still stands, though the actual 'figures of the Jiving wage fixed- by Mr. Justice Higgins have become out of date. So much so that the £2 2s weekly living wage fixed by him in 1907 has now given place in New South Wales to a £2 8s living wage declared by Mr. Justice Hoyden in the New South Wales Industrial Court on 16th February last. In arriving at the increase in the figures, it is necessary, in making the basic calculations, to separate the higher cost of living from the cost of higher living. Mr. Justice Heydon has sought to avoid the entanglement with the latter by dealing only with necessaries, and by appraising them on a statistical basis. Adopting Mr. Justice Higgins's standard, he applies it in the light of the best present-day statistics he can. get, and the result is an advance of 6s on the weekly figure fixed in 1907. The" living wage, Mr. Justice Heyden states, must relate to the humblest class of worker. It must " secure to the worker the satisfaction of his normal needs as an average worker of his class here in Australia." And it must be the "lowest (wage) which any male adult worker, not licensed as a slow worker, should receive." In the above requirements, be it noted, there is nothing about the value of the work done. In fact, Mr, Justice Heydon specifically states that a worker's living wage is to bo "based not on the value of his work, but on his requirements as a man in a civilised community" which has resolved to prevent competition causing sweating. If, owing to competition, an industry is unable to pay the living wage fixed, the argument is that that industry ought not to continue to exist. Such a contingency is clearly contemplated in Mr. Justice Heydon's judgment. The living wage "must be such that any further reduction would call for the extinction of the industry paying it." Thus, a figure is aimed at which will be the lowest point of living for the worker and his family, and immediately below which i& the death-point of industry. Whoever cannot employ at the living wage, should not employ at all. To give industry all possible latitude, such a minimum wage must essentially be graded down to bare necessaries. But such a low-pitched figure should not prevent the workers, in good times, getting payment above the living wage standard. "I think," says Mr. Justice Heydon, "they should in good times get more than a living wage." His Honour's finding of JO2 8s a week is based on a family of four, comprising the parents and two children (children above the age of 14 a»so excluded from consideration) living in a, house of three rooms and a kitchen (rent 12s a week). His Honour recommends the Wages Boards that the lowest wages for light labour should be 8s 6d per day; for ordinary labour, 8a 9d ; for heavy labour, 9s. So the lowest wage and the living wage are not the same thing. The lowest cannot be lower thaii the living wage. It may be higher, Bad times must not force wages bsloH the- living ijguroj the indiutry_

should be strong enough to carry over bad times and redeem its own position from its own resources. That is tne general philosophy of tho judgment on this point. For a variety of causes outside the worker himself, work done in an industry may not yield a profit. That is the direct responsibility of the indus-i try, not the worker. First ami foremost, the judgment is a glorification of statistics. Never before has the statistician come into such prominence. Mi-. Justice Heydon holds that the living wage should vise or fall according to the general table of the Commonwealth Statistician, as to the variation in the purchasing power of the sovereign. This might be a. good basis to rest upon if on© felt that statistics could not lie. Statistically, Australia is better favoured than most countries, because of the work of great specialists like Coghlan and Knibbs, and the organisation and results of the Common* wealth statistical office go a long way towards encouraging reliance upon it. At the same time, Mr. Justice Heydon has himself found a conflict, on the subject of rents, between tho tables of Mr. Knibbs and independent enquiries made in Sydney. To base the living wage on the cost of living is scientific enough, if the thing can be done. It is possible only by the aid of statistics, .and the unknown factor is the completeness and accuracy of the 'statistical methods and its results. Clearly, this science, so vital to modem conditions, is assuming an ever increasing elaborateness, and New Zealand must pay it far more attention than it has received here in the past. If the present trend of events continues, the statistician will become more and more the national physician, with his finger on the economic pulse, and with the power of life and death over industry. The logical outcome of Mr. Justice Heydon's judgment is that the whole community must look to the statistician, not as the arbiter of industrial conditions, but as the mathematical interpreter of them.