WORK AND WAGES.

Evening Star, Issue 11824, 2 March 1903, Page 1

WORK AND WAGES.

THE AEBITRAITON COURT. In the course of the clothing trade dispute at Auckland the President (Mr -Justice Cooper) suggested the appointment of experts by the combined employers of the colony to draw up a colonial log. It was impossible for men without a knowledge rf the trade to decide a question of a log on the evidence. Ho thought it would be a very great booh to workers ahd employers if they could get a colonial log. : In delivering the award in. the Waikato coal miners* dispute the President said: that the Court did not think they were justified m increasing the present standard rate of wages. The result of the company’s operations since the industrial agreement of 1900 was that, although the price of cool had been raised by them, the whole of the increased return Lad been absorbed : in the increased cost of production, and'the figures appearing in their published balance-sheets a decrease now amounting to about 4,000. tons in their year’s production and sales ,as compared with the production end sales for the year ended March 31, 1900. Their last balance-sheet showed .also' that the dividend of ?i per cent paid to their shareholders on the paid-up • capital of £72,000 absorbed all the profits of. the company with the exception of a sum of £494 written off for depreciation •of • machinery; while nothing was appropriated for the depreciation of the mine. On these" figures it did not appear to the Court that the *mplovees of the company had .been underpaid, and the operations of the company would not permit them to -pay a higher rate and obtain any reasonable return fer the capital invested.