ADJUSTMENT OF WAGES

Evening Star, Issue 17823, 21 November 1921, Page 10

ADJUSTMENT OF WAGES

ITS RELATION TO PROFITS. COURT DISCUSSES STATISTICS. In tho coarse of tho hearing at Christchurch of tho .freezing workers’ dispute before the Arbitration Court, Mr J. M’Combs, M.P., gave some very detailed evidence upon the cost of living statistics, loading Mr A. S. Cookson (the employers representative) to say that he did not consider such an academic discussion was a very vital matter. It was possibky to argue over statistics from different points of view for the rest of tho year. The President (Mr Justice Frazer) : “ Of course wo recognise that the adjustment of wages according to the cost of living is only a palliative. Ihe relation between profits and wages cannot be determined on that basin for more than a definite period. For one thing, the weighting must be amended, and that can t be done without upsetting our calculations. Tho Industries Committee altered the basis to some extent, but we have been working on the same figures since 1914. His Honor added that as time went on the Government Statistician’s index figure.? did not tend to become a real guide. Did the cost of living, estimated over an extended period, represent the real or ideal relationship between profits and wages? He did not consider it did. The level of wares over a long period must bear some relation to tho profits of an industry. Sooner or later, he supposed, things would get hack to normal, and in the mean time the court must sec. ns far as practicable, that wages were as high, and the conditions as"good, as was consistent with the profits earned and the general conditions of the industry. The present was a sec saw period so far as prices were concerned, and Die court was more or less under an obligation to see that wages did not come below tho court's standard before April next. Mr M. J. Reardon (the workers’ representative) remarked to Mr Cookson that various authorities bad stated that tnr statistical methods used in arriving at prices wore as sound as possible. Mr Cookson : I quite agree ; blit tho figures an* valuable only to show fluctuations in different commodities. Mr Reardon : The same methods are used by the bend of the postal service in England.

Mr Cookson : Yes; but it assumes that Die same quantitv of each commodity is used by a family each week throughout the year.

‘MV M’Combs stated that the British basis of computation would benefit Dm New Zealand worker ii it were adopted in the Dominion, lie would ark the court to take, all the gronns. not only the three food groups, in making its computation. His Honor : ‘‘ We have not keen working on the food groups for some timed’ Me believed the time would come again when the food groups would lie a fair basis for gauging fluctuations in the cost of living.

In the course of a still earlier discussion with Air W. E. Sill, representing the. workers, His Honor said clothing prices wore so varied aml uncertain that it was very difficult to make, any useful estimate of their level He did not agree with Mr 'till that now that forced sales wore coming to an end prices were tending to rise again. It seemed to him that many of the “sale prices” were really the new orices camouflaged.

A London cab’e stales that the underwriters receive 68 per cent, of the Australian loan.