WAGES, HOURS, COSTS

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 95, 23 April 1934, Page 8

WAGES, HOURS, COSTS

When a country adopts a policy of raising wages and reducing hours, the question at once forces itself: Will costs rise, and to what extent? No comprehensive estimate of United States costs seems to be available, but a Detroit cablegram dated April 4 stated:

Higher steel prices,' increased wages, and a reduction in working hours under the .N.B.A. code have resulted in a sharp increase in tho prices of motorcars, which will be effective (immediately. '. , . , :

Referring to the same vital factor of costs under the N.R.A., Mr..Stevens, Premier of New South Wales, stated recently that lie had noticed in the American trade union organs "a whole series of cartoons designed to direct the attention of the worker to the fact that, no sooner had the industrial code operated along the lines of the experiment than his cost of living outstripped the increase of his nominal wage." In the absence of evidence to the contrary, Mr. Stevens evidently takes it for granted that the N.R.A. dispensation will not be more successful than any other dispensation in giving wage concessions and hour concessions that need not be paid for in increased costs. Mr. Stevens goes further, and says that personally he believes that the Australian system of regulatng wages and hours by judicial tribunal is the better. "No system is perfect," and Avagc fixation on the cost of living basis has "distinct demerits," but where, he asks, is there a better? His main quarrel with the Australian tribunal system is that Federal and State tribunals overlap —but this at any rate is a defect that New Zealand is free of. ' • v