PASSING IT ON.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 142, 15 June 1920, Page 5

PASSING IT ON.

j INCREASED COST OF CIVTL I SERVICES. SHOULD BE BORNE BY USERS.. •ludging from inquiries made among business people this morning, they are ; j resigned to having the increases neccssi- . tatcd by giving the railway and postal employees more pay passed on, as foreshadowed by Mr. Massey in speaking to . a deputation of Civil servants. People shrug their shoulders and osk "Where is - I it. going tc. end?" and "Has the dog any , ; chance of catching its tail?" but they ! rrejard the passing on process as inevi- 1 : table. Asked what he thought the attitude of commercial men would be, Mr. A. S. Bankart, the president of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce, paid he con- ' sidered Mr. Masscy's decision to make < the services concerned "pay the increases ' was an inevitable consequence. It. was | ' sound business that a department should | bear its own expenses. It would have | been most unfair to throw the additional j burden on the consolidated r vniip, aa I ' had been suggested. By m ":ng the j : services bear the «xtra cost the people I who used those services would pay, whereas if the- increased expenditure were to come out of thr consnlidirtM revenue the incidence of th~ additional burden would bo unfair. Those that use c ] the ] services should p»v. A former president of the chamber. I Mr. Robert Burns said he wondered if j the public had ever considered how the ! j I public expenditure was running up in . connection with the public services. 1 He could assure those who had not ] ■ thought about the matter that when they went into figures they would be > astounded. While he fully realised i . that every man was justified in getting j ; a fair increase in pay owing to the! . higher cost of living, Mr. Burns ques-! tioned whether the increar-rs were based : on a fair principle. The Arbitration j . I Court based its bonuses on the increased ] I coet of living a« worked out Y*v the i . j Government Statistician, who took cer- j • tain necessities of life and struck his' , percentage accordingly. But the boniis | . 'was calculated on the whole of a man's j wages. While the necessities of life I might navp gone up at tho rate calcu- J 1 I lated by the Government Statistician, , ! <=ome things had not gone up in the I ; same ratio. Not only did the employee I I get an inoreaw on the amount of money he spent on the necessities of life, but also on what he spent on things that 1 had not gone up in the eamo proportion. For instance a man might spend a ecr- ' tain amount at the races, or any plea- 1 euro, and that carried the bonus just the samn as the money actually spent | on the articles upon ■which the Govern- ■ ment Statistician had based hi s esti- , mate of the percentage increase in the 1 cost of living.