RAILWAY OFFICERS' INSTITUTE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIII, Issue 445, 10 July 1922, Page 6

RAILWAY OFFICERS' INSTITUTE.

The Palmerston North branch of the Railway Officers’ Institute was visited last evening by Messrs J. U. Robertson (president), (.'. R. Hell (vice-president), and C. R. Morgan (general secretary). During his remarks to members Mr Robertson compared the cost of living figures, as shown in the Government Statistician’s tables, with those embodied in Mr Justice Frazer’s special report to the Minister of Finance, and asked for in connection with the second '’cut.” lie pointed out that the Statistician’s tables lor 1920 showed the cost of living “all groups” for March, 1920, to be 63 per cent above July, 1914, whereas the index ligures quoted by Mr Frazer gave the increase as 73 per cent for 1920, and his figures for May, 1922, showed that the cost of living had dropped to 62 per cent. If the wages and salaries were reduced in the same ratio then the maximum reduction that could be made in the bonus was £ls. As £l6 was actually taken from the rank and file as from Ist January, 1922, another reduction was not justified in July, and the second “cut” was absolutely unwarranted. The Public (expenditure Adjustment Act referred to reductions in wages in the • standard of living. _ Such standard must be a fair one, and it was unreasonable to base it on the three food group ligures, which only covered one-third of tiie general expenditure of ’the ordinary household. Messrs Hell and Morgan dealt exhaustively with the finances and general policy of the institute. After the addresses an hour was spent in harmony, Messrs Fania, Fancourt and Wylie contributing items.