AUSTRALIAN NEWS

Grey River Argus, 19 September 1945, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN NEWS

SYDNEY GUN PLAY. SYDNEY, September 18. Two men were shot dead and three others were wounded in Paddington suburb early/ this morning. Later, two men were shot during an argument outside a picture theatre in the same suburb. The first shooting took place in a block of flats. The police established that during a mixed drinking party an argument occurred, during which one of the guests produced a pistol and fired several shots. MINERS’ PROPOSALS. SYDNEY, September 17. One-day stop-work meetings will be held by all coal miners throughout Australia between September 26 and October 3 to adopt, decisions reached at the recent Miners’ Convention in Sydney. At these meetings, miners’ officials intend to impress on the men that a fight .for better conditions should be conducted sensibly and by the union as a whole, and not by an individual lodge or members. The miners will be told of the convention’s recommendations that no strike pay should be issued unless the stoppage is authorised by the Union. The general secretary of the Miners’ Federation, Air Grant, said that speakers at the proposed stopwork meetings would also deal extensively with proposals of the Miners’ Convention for nationalisation of the industry, its mechanisation, and a suggested five-year agreement with mineowners. There were strikes in seven collieries in New South Wales yesterday and the loss in production was 4100 tons of output.

PRICES OF WOMEN’S HATS FIXED

CANBERRA, September 18. A Price Regulations Order fixing maximum prices for women’s, maids’ and girls’ headwear .of all desciiptions has been issued. The principal feature of the order is thpt “without the special approval of the Deputy Prices Commissioner no hat can be sold at a price in excess of 30s and no renovation can be charged at a price higher than 21s”. LATER

The retail prices of some women’s hats wll drop by half as the result o the new order fixing ninety shillings as the maximum selling price. A Prices Branch official said this action has been taken because small traders have been “making a lot out of nothirw”, and the women from all ovei Australia had complained. BASIC WAGE QUESTION. SYDNEY, September 17. Arising out of trade union oie " bodings of general strikes if the F'ede’-al Government wipes out the war loading of wages, a suggestion has been made that the Government should start an inquiry to establish a ne.w basis for the basic wage. Ihe war loading, which puts from 2 s to 6s a week on workers earnings, was given to compensate for the extra effort the workers were expected to give during the war. Now it is suggested that war loading payments should cease, and this has already been done in some cases. The ydney “Daily Telegraph’ says: Naturally the workers do not want to lose the war loading. They Know the cost of living is up far beyond the 22u per cent, officially estimated as a war-time increase in prices. So they want the war loading to be included in their basic wage. But this demand is only part of a larger and more important one put forward by the Iresident of the Australasian Council oi Trade Unions (Mr P. J. C'larey). He argues that we need a new set or standards for fixing the basic wage; which has become a hopelessly abstract and confused concept since it was first established as a yardstick for measuring the value of labour in Australia. Originallv—in 1907—the basic wage was fixed to provide a frugal standard of comfort for a family of five”. Now the dominant idea in the mind of the Court, when it hears evidence and delivers judgment on this issue, is, “What can the industry pay?” to provide that minimum. In 1940 Chief Justice Beeby. ol the Arbitration Court, pointed out that the wage was not based upon family requirements, but upon the health of the national economy, and he came to the conclusion that the wane was then sufficient 1o maintain onlv the wife, husband, and one child, compared with a family group of five in 1907. . . Mr Clarey’s argument m favoui of a new standard for computing the wage is that prosperity depends on high wages and purchasing power He says industry and employment will expand, increasing the output o* commodities and services. a. o buy these the worker must have a margin of wages left over after he has paiu for the minimum necessities of the "frugal” existence. If he has not got this margin, and cannot buy them, industry will not be able to continue exploiting the techniques which will enable if to turn out goods and services in luxurious abundance. “It is all bunkum to say that the basic wage is intended to Provide for basic needs,” savs Mr Clarey/. By the basic needs he means what the civilisation of our time considers to be the basic needs for a reasonably full living. He means that as production increases the volume of o-oods .which were once rare and luxurious, the general standards should rise. The “Daily Telegraph” supports his argument, saying that modern mass production cannot work without a big market. What industry can pay is determined by what it can sell, and what it can sell is determined by what the mass of the consumers can buy. In it.s own selfish interests, therefore, industry must take a borader view of its ability to pay.