LABOUR NOTES

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 50, 28 February 1914, Page 12

LABOUR NOTES

(By "Unionist.") THE LIVING WAGE. JUDGE HEYDON'S REPORT. MINIMUM FORTY-EIGHT SHILLINGS The full text of Judge Heydon's report on what shall constitute the minimum living wage in New South Wales Wages Boards' awards, is now to hand. Mis Honour's fixing of the basic living minimum wage at 48s weekly has created a stir in industrial circles. Already about twenty unions have decided to apply to tho respective Wages Boards of their trades to have their existing awards altered up to tho standard fixed. Tho report occupies 100 pages of type-written foolscap. Quito recently Judge Higginß, of tho Commonwealth Court, ifixed the minimum wage of unßkiled labour in Sydney at 54s » week, but that wage is based on an average family of five, while Judge Hcydon has made his computation on an average family of four as a basis. In the course of his judgment, His Honour cays : — THE PROBLEM. . "It will be well first to consider what it is which we aro seeking. As long ago as 1904 a pronouncement was made in the State as to the principle which should be followed in fixing the wage of the humblest worker. In 1907 Mr. Justice Higgins had to consider the question, and used his famous expression that the standard should bo 'the normal needs of the average, employee regarded as a human being living in a civilised community.' The concrete illustration of hiu meaning which ho then supplied was the Harvester wage for families of about five, made up as follows: — Food, groceries, and fuel, £1 5s sd ; rent, 7s; other expenditure, 9s 7d; total, £2 2s. . "The family to be provided for should, in my opinion consist of the two parents and the dependent children." As to the rent— the house should be. his Honourthought, of three rooms besides a kitchen. It was quite true that some families would require more rooms, and others not 6o many; but one could only go by averages, imperfect as the method was. DECENCY IN THE HOUSE. "Wages do not depend on the size of a family, he went on, "though it might perhaps be a good thing if they could be made to do so; and I venture, very respectfully, to suggest to our rulors and legislators the question whether, for public servants, the number of children might not be one of the factors on- which the rate of wages might be based. I frme considered whether a house with two rooms and a kitchen could be fairly taken as the standard, but I think that the immense importance of preserving decency in the home, and the great help which reasonable house accommodation gl j e to wards maintaining a good fitandard of manners and civilisation must require us to reject it. NOT THE LOWEST WAGE. "When," said his Honour, "the living wage is found, it does not follow that it is to bo necessarily the lowest wage in every, or perhaps in any, industry, at the present time. If workers are always to bo kept to a strict living wage, what is to happen to them in times of nrosperity and chortago of labour? Though the fix ing of a living wage is important in order to prevent their being forced down into sweated conditions by competition or bad times, should it bo used to prevent their getting more when under ordinary ''circumstances they would get more? To my mind, certainly not. Labour is » commodity—the only one which tho labourer has to sell. j "Courts of Arbitration are," His Honour said later, "courts of justice, and tho motto of a court of justice is, 'Let justice bo done, though the heavens fall.' If employers had it in their power to stop tho wheels of industry by a lock-put and were to demand from me, under that implied threat, tho awarding of what I considered a sweating wage, I should thing it a shocking thing to yield to them. FIXING A LIVING WAGE. "The preliminary consideration is," His Honour said, "to find tho wago which will do neither moro no less than enable a worker of tho class to which the lowest wage would be awarded to maintain himself, his wife, and two children, in a, house of three rooms and a kitchen, with lood, f plain and inexpensive, but quite Bhfhcient in quantity and quality to maintain health and efficiency, and with an allowanco for other expenses equivalent to that fixed by Mr Justice Higgins in 1907. llio strict living wag© must fulfil two conditions: (1) It must be such a<s Lo secure to the worker the satisfaction of his normal needs as t*n average worker of his cla«s here m Australia ; and (2) it must bo such that any further reduction would call for the extinction of cho industry paying it. Jheso two amounts must coincide,, and a Imug wage should not be leas than tho former and not more than the latter.' LOWEST WAGE AND LIVING WAGE. "To make the lowest wago always the living wage would be to debar the manual worker, who, in the immense majority of cases, must remain a manual worker all his life, from any possible improvement in his conditions. His fage might go up or down, but only in strict agreement witli tho increase or diminution of his expenses, so that really it would be always the same. Is this fair ? Ido not think so. He should have his share in prosperous times. He is. still contributing the same, towards tho work of the community. Whore tho result of that work is fortunate, and everybody benefits, why should he not benefit also? True, hw share is humble; ambition, backed up with natural aptitude and a resolute will, is the main cause of the progress of the community, and, amongst other things, of its advance in wealth; and manual labour is, as such, the instrument of the men to T cndowed; but it is an indispensable instrument, and it is supplied by human beings and free citizens, whoso share in tho general life of. the community is groat and important, and for whose welfare indeed in common with that of everybody elpe the community life exists at all. I think they should in good times get more than a living wago." His Honour finally sums up by fixing the 'owest; living wago at 48s weekly. UNH"APPY DUBLIN. The city on the Liffey has been much i» the public eye of late because of tho magnitude of the industrial upheaval. Sir Oharles Cameron, Chief Health Officer of the City, has issued a startling report. According to this, nearly half the population of Dublin is doomed to die in State and charitable institutions. Of the 8728 deaths in 1912, 3783, or 43.3 per cent., occurred in various workhouses, hospitals, lunatic asylums, and prisons. In tho city proper the death rate was 22 per thousand, while in the suburbs it wae nearly 15. Of each 1000 children born in 1912 as many as HO died before they were a year old. Among tho very poor in tho metropolitan area tho death rate was 30.6 per 1000, and that dreadful high percentaige was caused mainly by tho wasting away, of babies. • q The report gives the number of families living in one-room tenements as 21,133, packed away in slum aties as follows :-jNumber of one-roomed tenements occupied by — Four persong 3074 Six persons .„ 1488 Soven persons 854 Eight persons 431 Nino persons ... ... ... 146 .Ten persons 45 Eleven persons 16 And there-were five tenements found with upwards of 12 men, women, and children living and sleeping in one room. "I have always maintained," says Sir Charles Cameron, "that the comparatively high death rate of Dublin is mainly due io the largo number ot lery poor who resido in it."