Earnings Outstrip Costs

Northern Advocate, 19 July 1938, Page 9

Earnings Outstrip Costs

| --MR. SULLIVAN \ 11 Per Press Association. Copyright.] I CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. i A claim that the incomes of the • workers and small dairy farmers were 1 ahead of the increases in the cost of living was made by the Minister of Industries and Commerce, the Hon. D. G. Sullivan, at Rangiora last night. Ho ] quoted figures supplied by the census ! and statistics office, “the department ! that knows no politics.” in support of his contention. | The census and statistics office had supplied him with a figure which showed that the all-groups index of retail prices fer April. 1938. was 13 per cent, above the average index for 1835. and that the wages rates index for adult males at March 31, 1938. was 23.9 per cent, above the average for 1935. Therefore at March 31, the workers were nearly 11 per cent, ahead of the increased cost of living. lime Fiag Favours Wages? “A the farmers and small dairy i farmer; had received a greater in- | crease in incomes than ordinary j workers, they too were much ; ahead of the increase in costs,” i said the Minister. “This is the first | time in history that the time flag : has been in favour of wages as a gam t costs." j The aggregate amount of wages and i saiares paid for the year ended March j 31 last was £98.600,000, equivalent to | an increase of 59.1 per cent, over the amount for 1935. More significant was the increase in volume of prcduci tion of goods, said Mr. Sullivan, asi between 1935 and 1837. The increase! in factory production outside of the j agricultural, pastoral and dairying;! industries amounted 1o 18.6 per cent, i Those additional goods could not have! been purchased by the people if the j increased cost of living cancelled out j the increased wages and 1 income. !