BONUS REDUCTION

Evening Star, Issue 17954, 27 April 1922, Page 9

BONUS REDUCTION

PRESIDENT CLEARS MISUNDERSTANDING. EMPLOYEES’ EVIDENCE, UNIONS’ CASE OPENED. [Per United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, April 27. When the Arbitration Court opened today Mr Justice Frazer said that ho wished to clear up a misunderstanding with regard to the court’s Wanganui pronouncement. That pronouncement was not a tentative proposal that wages should be reduced by 5s per week. Tho court s statement was purely a statistical one, and not in any sense a statement of whether or to what extent wages should bo reduced, The employers’ evidence was continued'. Arthur Seed, secretary of the Dominion Federated Saw-millers’ Association, read a statement showing a closing down of mills and -a shortening of hands and a general reduction of 2« pea' hundred in the prices at the mill. The labor costs represented 70 to 75 per cent, of the total production costs. Beaumont Mapplebcok, representing the hoot manufacturers, gave evidence as to tho unparalleled prosperity of tho boot trade between 1915 and 1918. Witness spoke of the effect of heavy importations in 1920, causing New Zealand factories when tho slump came to work half-time. England, whore wages were £2 18s. compared with £4 11s 8d hero, and whore tho workers put in four extra, hours, was New Zealand’s greatest competitor, Manufacturers had had to sell below cost ns much. —as 50 per cent, in some cases. The latest figures showed that in March last there were employed 176 less workers than in •March, 1920. CASE FOB THE UNIONS. EXTENSION OF "STABILISATION PERIOD ASKED. WELLINGTON, April 27, Mr M'Combs (representing tho Alliance of Labor and other bodies) congratulated Mr Bishop on his choice of the engineering trade as tho principal basis from which to light the case, and for the avoidance of the woollen and other industries, which were paying handsomely. Dealing with the result of stabilisation, ho said the reductions in the cost of living had not been as rapid as tho court had anticipated. The fall of 10s which should have taken place at tho end of the first six months did not occur until the end of a year, and the workers therefore urged that tho stabilisation period should bo extended for one year. In making this request they relied on the promise of tho court that if the fall in the cost of living should prove to bo less than anticipated there would be a readjustment. Having protested against tho non-publication of "all groups’’ index j numbers since August, 1920, lie said tho court could not, if it was to maintain a fair standard of living, possibly reduce the present minimum rates of wages; and in this connection he contrasted tho decision of the Australian Commission, fixing the average basic wage at £5 14s sd. Wages, apart from the withholding of the os bonus, had already been reduced by employers, who were paying only tho minimum wage fixed by award, and by only intermittent employment. The workers’ wages had always lagged behind the increase in tho cost of living, and to reduce wages to tho amount shown by the reduction in the cost of living would be to multiply by two the disadvantages which tho workers had to put up with during the war and since. Last session’s Act required the court not to lower wages below what was necessary to maintain a fair standard .of living, .and if. was perfectly plain that this was to override all other considerations. It was true that wages bad fallen in other countries, but wages there had increased in greater ratio than tho increase in tho cost of living, lie contended that tho 1914 standard was not fair in New Zealand, and unfortunately the New Zealand workers did not to-day obtain as high a wage, measured in purchasing power, as they did in 1914. Discussing economic conditions, Mr M’Oombs argued that there was evidence of increasing prosperity for Now Zealand. Her ■exports for tho year just closed exceeded in amount the total for the two best prewar year’s, and tho heavy importations in 1920 and tho beginning of 1921 only temporarily disturbed the balance of trade. Very substantial reductions in prices should take place before wages were reduced. In conclusion, Mr M’Combs urged tho court, if he succeeded in proving that tho present basic wage did not afford a fair standard of living, not only not to reduce wages, but to urge upon" tho Government the appointment of a commission to go into the question of what is a fair standard of living. It was truer economy to make the wages bill the last instead of tho first to he touched.