COST OF LIVING

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 90, 16 April 1923, Page 8

COST OF LIVING

INCREASE IN STANDARD WAG*»

THE LABOUR VIEW.

Although the Arbitration Court has decided not to make a general oixlerreducing rates of remuneration, tin; position is not altogether viewed witii satisfaction in Labour circles, and it is possible that an effort may be made to induce the Court to allow the, union* to make application for existing i-iites to be increased. . ' ";■

The Labour views were summarised by Mr. A. Parlane, secretary of the Drivers' Federation, to-day, when he -said that the present rates of wages still left the workers below the 1914 standard of living.' According to the Court's announcement, the average in the .cost o£ living for the past six months was 56.2 per cent, higher than the 1914 level. In 1914, the standard wage for unskilled' -workers was Is 2d per hour; therefore, to reach the 1914 standard,; the unskilled workers would require to-day to receive Is 9gd per hour, whereas the Court only allowed Is Bjd. . ■ '■ .

"It is hard to believe that the cost of living is only 56.2 per cent, above the 1914 level," stated Mr. Parlane. "In saying this, I do not desire to cast any reflection on ' the Government Statistician's office, but the point is that.we have no means of checking the information he receives from the tradespeople in respect to the movement in the cost of living. His computations are simply made on ex parte statements of one section of the community. The, average worker finds it considerably harder' to live on what he earns at present than on what he received in 1914. The whols question of the Court's standard wage should be reopened, with the object of hearing evidence and argument in. favom of an increase in the standard rate."-