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Greymouth Evening Star, 24 May 1922, Page 3

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MR BISHOP’S STATEMENT

(Special to the Star.)

WELLINGTON, May 25

The effect of the Arbitration Court’s recent wages pronouncement was referred to to-day by Mr T. 0. Bishop, acting secretary of the Employers' Federation, in an interview with a * ‘Post” representative.

“While they arc unable to agree with the Court’s decision, for reasons given by Mr William Scott in his dissent, employers throughout the Dominion are accepting the pronouncement in the best possible spirit, and are honestly endeavouring to make the best of it,” remarked Mr Bishop. ‘Sawmillers, flour millers, coal mining companies, builders and allied trades, engineers, carriers, master printers, boot manufacturers, and many other employers have reduced their prices, and in some cases the reductions have been considerably greater than the drop in production cost, due to the reduction of 5/- per week in wages. It is true that in a very few cases reductions in prices have not been announced since the wages cut, but in these cases, it is cither because the proportion which wages bear to the total production cost is so small that a reduction of 5/- per week has but a trifling effect upon the cost of the article, or because the prices had already been reduced to a minimum. Although the amount of the reduction in wages is so small, an honest endeavour is now being made by very many employers to give the public the full corresponding benefit, or more than a corresponding benefit. The reduced prices cannot but bring about an appreciable further drop in the cost of living, and more especially will this come to pass if leaders of organised Labour will recognise that thenclaims have received generous recognition by the Court and will advocate loyal and efficient service on the part of their followers. There i s a long, stiff climb in front of industry and commerce, and the co-operation of employers and employees is the only way by which a return to prosperity can bo hastened.”