LIVING STANDARD

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 287, 4 December 1941, Page 8

LIVING STANDARD

FALL INEVITABLE

PROFESSOR'S OPINION

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, this day A substantial fall in the standard of living of the community as a whole appeared unavoidable, said Professor A. H. Tocker, Dean of the Faculty of Commerce and Economics at Canterbury University College, in giving evidence in the Arbitration Court yesterday in the wages increase application. He said that wage and salary earners, receiving about 65 per cent of the total income, were so important a part of the whole that they could not be exempted, and an attempt to maintain their standards would necessarily place on the other 35 per cent of income a burden beyond its power to bear.

Professor Tocker was the only witness called by the employers. He said that while he had prepared his statement at the request of the Employers' Federation, the treatment of it was entirely his own affair. It represented the viewpoint of an outside economist desirous of assisting the Court.

Professor Tocker's evidence, which concerned the economic and financial condition of New Zealand, comprised more than 12,000 words.