COST OF LIVING.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17078, 29 January 1916, Page 4

COST OF LIVING.

VIEWS OF RAILWAYMEN. At the last monthly meeting of the Wanganui branch of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, a discussion on the ever-increasing cost of the necessaries of life took place. Members commented with bitterness on the "failure of the National Government to check in any degree the artificial raising of prices." It was contended (reports an oxchange) that it seemed the chief policy of tho Government solely to encourage what it calls the "primary producer," utterly unmindful of the interests of the rest of the community, and apparently forgetful of the fact that if it were not for the transport workers (of whom the railway men form a considerable part) the primary producers' products would remain where they were produced, and the prosperity of the country, which tho Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance spend so much eloquence on, /would not be so apparent as these politicians claim it to be. It was stated that tho members of the second division in the railway service are practically the only body of men who have not received increased pay since the outbreak of the war, that private employers and public bodies have in nearly all cases given increased pay to their employees, but not so the management of the people's railways. Railwaymen were existing to-day orr the rates of pay in force for the last or four years. The increase in the price of flour and bread was debated, and {.ho following resolution carried, and is to bo forwarded to the Prime Minister :'—•" That this branch desires to draw the attention of the Prime Minister to the recent increase in tho price of flour and bread, and urges that the duty on flour be taken off,- thereby cheapening in a degree the cost of a prime necessary."