Substantial Fall In Living Standards Seems Unavoidable

Northern Advocate, 4 December 1941, Page 2

Substantial Fall In Living Standards Seems Unavoidable

-PROFESSOR TOCKER

[Per Press Association —Copyright.] WELLINGTON, This Day

A substantial fall in the standard of living of the community as a whole appeared unavoidable, said the Dean of the Faculty of Commerce and Eccncmics at Canterbury University College (Professor A. H. Tocker), in giving evidence in the Arbitration Court in the wages increase application. He said that wage and salary earners, receiving about 65 per cent, of the total income, were so important a part of the whole that they could not be exempted, and an attempt to maintain their standards would necessarily place on the other 35 per cent, of income a burden beyond its power to bear.

Frofesor Tocker was the only witness called by the employers. He said that while he had prepared his statement at the request cl' the Employers’ Federation, the treatment of it was entirely his own affair. It represented the viewpoint of an outside economist desirous of assisting the court. Professor Tocker’s evidence, which concerned economic and financial conditions of New Zealand, comprised more than 12,000 words.