BACK TO 1900 AND FURTHER.

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 4591, 17 May 1922, Page 4

BACK TO 1900 AND FURTHER.

(To the Editor of tho Star.) By J. AIcCOAIBS, M.P. If the workers are to regain the relative wago positions which they held in 1914, or even in 1900, they must do something more than defend their present standard of living. They must do something more than resist the Employers’ Association’s demand that wages shall bo reduced faster than the cost of living decreases. The workers must insist that the Arbitration Court shall pursuo the samo “go-slow” policy on the down grado as it undoubtedly did on the rip-grade. AV’agcs were not increased in proportion to the increase in the cost of living, and should not now be reduced in proportion to cost of living decreases. If wages should fall in proportion to the decrease in the cost of living, and if wo ever got back to 1914 prices, then wages will be actually, as well as nominally, 20 per cent, below 1914 rates. Wages are actually 20 per cent, below 1914 rates to-day, measured in purchasing power. To regain their lost positions the workers must have the 20 per cent, which they are short in wages restored to them. As the legislation of last session requires the Court not to reduce wages below what is required “to maintain a fair standard of living,” it was surely hardly contemplated, or oxpoctod, that the Arbitration Court would fix as a “fair” standard a wagQ which, is 14.19 and 20 below the minimum for a living wago for 1013-

The AA’ellington Unions are of opin- 1 ion that the immediate minimum demand should be tlio restoration of the 5s bonus. Thero should then ho no reduction in wages until prices—“all groups”—fall to an average increase of 50 per cent, over 1914 prices; and then only a reduction of 3s, reducing tho 2/l£ per hour to 2/1. A datum lino could tlion bo fixed for a semi-skilled worker at 2/1 per hour corresponding with a new wageprice index number of 1000 which could bo known as tlie “Datum Index.” Then for every rise or fall of 10 points wages should rise or fall ono farthing per hour. This would secure to the workers the 1914 standard of comfort and open the way for eventually securing a wage sufficient “to maintain a fair standard of living.” It is quite idle to maintain that tho rates of wages asked for cannot bo paid, because their equivalents were being paid in 1914 when the valuo of our exports and our total privato wealth wero each only onehalf of wliat they are to-day. If the workers cannot immediately bo paid a wage sufficient “to maintain a fair standard of living”—and it is not admitted that they cannot—then the least they should receive, is the equivalent of 1914 rates, and industry and commerce, bank rates, interest and land values, can adjust themselves accordingly. Christchurch, 15/5/22.