MINIMUM WAGE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 23 June 1923, Page 7

MINIMUM WAGE.

DISCONTENTED MINERS

! BY CABLE—PEESS ASSOCIATION—COPTBIGHT i LONDON, June 22. The House of Commons fully debated the position in the mining industry, which has been the subject of considerable agitation among miners. The Labour Party introduced • a Minimum Wage Hill, providing for a minimum wage 76 per cent above the 1914 basis, with subsequent adjustments according to the cost of living as shown by th« official index figures. ' It was agreed that this would mean . £12,500,000, which Mr. W. Adamson ■; (Labour) suggested the owners could : make up by better organisation of the industry and the elimination of intermediate profits. The owners replied that the Bill would mean unemployment and dearer coal. Mr. J. Hartshorn (Labour) said tk» Bill would raise the wages of twenty of the lower grades of workers in South j Wales to only about 45s 4d for a fivej day week. With the present wage j there was no hone of industrial peace. I Sir P. Lloyd-Graeme (President of I the Board of Trade) said the Bill ; meant jettisoning tne existing agree- ; ment, which was working well. The ■ present wages were not the result of a faulty 'agreement, but were due to the economic conditions surrounding this and other industries. The Bill was re'eeted by 230 votes to 154.