PREMIER’S PROPOSALS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LI, Issue 69, 20 February 1931, Page 2

PREMIER’S PROPOSALS.

DEPUTATION FROM ALLIANCE OF LABOUR. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Feb. 20. A deputation representing the Alliance of Labour waited on Mr Forbes to-day to protest against the proposal for a reduction of wages. It was claimed that any reduction in wages to the lower-paid men would place an inequitable burden on their shoulders. Mr Roberts, secretary of the alliance, said that no union secretary could do other than advise his men not to accept any reduction. Mr Forbes, in reply, said that the Dominion was faced with a reduced income of £20,000,000, and he saw no other course than to reduce costs. He regretted that the alliance of Labour had taken up such an attitude, as he felt that his programme, if adopted, would be in the best interests of the working man in the long run. He was satisfied that a reduction in the cost of living would follow reduced wages. Mr Cook, President of the Alliance, brought up the question of men in camp on the stopped railway work on the East Coast line, ' complaining of the position of married women whose husbands had • been transferred elsewhere. The single men in the camps had become a burden on the charity of the community. Mr Forbes, in reply, said that arrangements were being made in regard to married men and their wives and families. As for the single men, he indicated that they should have gone away three months ago when the work was stopped and he advised them now to go to a place where'the Unemployment Act was being administered and work could be found for them.