"TOTALLY UNJUSTIFIABLE."

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 218, 13 August 1940, Page 8

"TOTALLY UNJUSTIFIABLE."

HOSPITAL BOARD’S VIEW

AUCKLAND, Aug. 12. The general order of the Court of Arbitration making a 5 per cent, increase in industrial award wages was described as totally unjustifiable and incompatible with a sincere war effort by members of the Auckland Hospital Board, at a meeting to-night. It was stated by the chairman (Mr Allan Moody) that the new scale would involve t'he board in extra-expenditure of £7OOO.

“I view this totally unjustifiable increase with considerable alarm,” Mr Moody said. “How the Government or the learned Judge can expect hospital boards or other local bodies to budget in the face of these facts is beyond my comprehension. We are rushing onward and upward with the brakes off. The cost of living will rise further, and the burden on ratepayers in meeting hospital taxation will be greater than ever.” Mr Moody said he thought an emphatic protest should he entered against such an increase. When the young men of tile country were offering their lives -overseas at a wage of 7s a day the special war contribution of Is in the £ was being passed on to the unfortunate employer.