Grey River Argus and Blackball News TUESDAY, MAY 16, 1922. BACK TO BARE SUBSISTENCE.

Grey River Argus, 16 May 1922, Page 4

Grey River Argus and Blackball News

TUESDAY, MAY 16, 1922. BACK TO BARE SUBSISTENCE.

Delivered cv ?y mo. niniJ In <>i -uU* i -•» HcklHka, I.'i i s< fl. W.C'.-'.c’id ,i : e. Ngiherc. K:.i kba(l, Nusun Crc”l:. 3ruijp<jr, Tc Kingh.' Koiiiiiiiu.u, I’oen Inchbonrve. Patara Kuru. Kan h i la, Kotlik: >lcana, Arp.tika, Bunanga. DonplJ’e, Cobden, Baxters, Kokiri, Ahaura, Ikatr.atua. StiJwdt' i. Vv'aiuta, Reei'tun, Ross, Rua'.,>.pu:i, Mananui. IJ.U'i Hart, Waihu Gorge, Wehcka, Rewanui. Otira. liiaut'Nhu.i Juuct on. Westport. Wamiangar j3l, Denniston, Cranity, Millerton. Ngakawau. Heutotj Seddou villc. Cape Foul wind, and Kai awr ’.

The grounds on which the Government, the Arbitration Court, and the employers base their wage cutting campaign arc false. The employers say the cost of prodm-tion must be reduced, the Government declares the cost of Government must be lessened, while the Arbitration Court holds that wages are to be in the main, determined by the profits made by the farmers. Every one of those contentions boils down to this: That the only thing to be reduced, or that it is cither desirable or possible to reduce, is wages, or, in other words, the standard of living for the working class, the majority. The reduction of costs either of production or Government other than wage costs is a process .surely with which the workers have nothing to do! Why then is it sought to show such a reduction remains to bo effected? Why has it been delayed? Simply because costs other than wages are really profits for some capitalist or other. What has the State done to reduce food prices,

reights, and other charges affecting ndustry, governmental costs, and living :osts alike? Mr Massey’s boast of a laving of £5,500,000, where it is not Luo to neglect of public, services, is due :o wage cuts and sackings, instituted so that the -Shylocks shall get their full pound of flesh. Rightly are Labour leaders asking where food prices have fallen as alleged in connection with the wage cuts. Is it not a. fact that unemployment has largely cut wages even before the Court joined in the chopping process? Labour leaders can prove, and do prove, conclusively that to-day workers in this country are from 8/- to I”*/- per week worse off in the matter of wages than they were in 1914. The unskilled workers are <B/- per week worse off than before the warj semiskilled, 8/- to 15/- worse off; skilled 8/- to 14/-; and on the average all workers are 11/- worse, off. The Court’s figures show a wage increase since 1914 averaging 50 per cent., whereas its cost of living lignres, which are actually below the real mark, admit an increase

of 67 per cent, since pre-war days. In- i stead of 1/9I per hour as under the ( Court’s new decision, unskilled work- ’ ers, if thev got G 7 per cent, increase on ‘ pre-war r.;tcs would receive 1/11?.; semi- | skilled workers would get 2/2} to 2/31 instead of the Court’s award of 1/101 to 2 I'.; skilled workers would get. 2/41 Jto 2/6 per hour instead of 2/21, so that J 1 OU Hie :ivei-:i|><‘ wages are to-day 2:Jd per ; hour short of what they should be. All | these facts had been clearly deuionstra- i ted to by Mr Jas. Mr-Combs, M.P., to I the Arbitration t.’ourt before it made, the recent cut. He says the figures] prove conclusively the Court has ig-1 nored the proviso in last session’s new | Act directing that the Court shall not I reduce remuneration rates of workers below what will maintain a. fair standard of living. Mr McCombs points out that “against the Court's impressions gathered on the racecourse ami at the picture shows, regarding the improved conditions of the workers through being able to work overtime, there are the ■ definite figures prepared by the Go- j | vernment Statistician covering 78,853. employees, male' and female, in ‘all! f industries,’ which show an aveiagai wages earned in 1915-16 of £ll7 2/-,; and in 1920-21 of £2lO 6/-, including j bonuses find overtime, or an fiverage. increase of only 581 per cent, to meet, an im rease of 80 per cent, in the cost . of living at the peak, and to meet a i 67 per cent, increase in the cost of liv- i ing for the six months ending March, 1022, the period of the present com- , putation.’’ The new scale of wages is at least .10 per cent, lower on the average than it should be, and the Court has failed to show ho\v £3 IR/6 a week will maintain :i family at the present | time. The Court, while talking of al fair standard of living for workers,' Ims actually got back to the bad old i bare subsistennee level. The next step t is privation, and want. No wonder the. protagonists of wealth quake to-day in' their shoes, and legislate in a panicky | wav for dragooning the people into ting-saluting, silence, find slavery. They , are building a rotten economic edifice | which is destined to collapse upon their i heads.