COST OF LIVING.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 1977, 19 November 1921, Page 5

COST OF LIVING.

SUBSTANTIAL REDUCTION. ARBITRATION COURT PRONOUNCEMENT. (Per Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, Last Night. The decrease in the cost of living for the current six-monthly statistical period is estimated by the Arbitration Court at from 7/- to 9/- per week for the typical wage-earner with a wife and two children. This estimate was announced to-day by Mr Justice Frazer in the course of the freezing workers’ dispute, while .Mr McCombs, M.P., was giving evidence for the workers upon the cost of living. His Honour said the Court wus not issuing any definite pronouncement at present regarding the stabilisation of wages, but hoped to do so in January, after it had asked a number of further questions about the prices of certain commodities. The inquiry was difficult, because the prices of many lines varied greatly in different towns, and at different times, but the estimate was that the drop was between 7/- and D/- per week over the period. The Court had taken rent only at the Government Statistician’s figures. His Honour added that the Statistician, of course, was not responsible for the clothing figures. He had merely supplied the Court with data upon which it had based its own calculations. If the Court had under-estimated the drop in clothing six months ago tlje aggregate drop might now be the full 10/-, in which case the Court’s stabilisation basis would prove fairly correct. The drop would certainly be at least 7/-. The exact arithmetical average of the drop shown in the figures supplied by clothing and drapery firms was 30 per cent. If this were taken for the purposes of calculation, the aggregate drop would be 9/- per week. However, he still thought the clothing average estimated for a six months’ aggregate was rather high. The Court, in placing it at 3/-, had assumed that there had been no variation in prices in the preceding six months, whereas there had been many bargain sales. The recent drop in butter had helped to bring matters out in accordance with the Court’s expectations. If butter had not fallen, the stabilisation estimate, he thought, would not have proved correct. 'T think on the whole,’’ he concluded, “that things have worked out very fairly.” In an earlier discussion, his Honour pointed out that clothing was the most difficult factor with which the Court had to deal in making its estimates. The returns sent in by firms were indefinite and amusingly complicated. The question of sale prices entered largely into the enquiry, anpl the Court did no? know much about them.