DEFINITION OF POPULATION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 24 April 1937, Page 12

DEFINITION OF POPULATION

NECESSARY IN AWARDS EFFECT ON LEVEL OF WAGES [United Press Association] ROTORUA, 22nd April. “The trouble is that these people go along and make these cumbersome, inaccurate awards and then expect the courts to interpret them,” Said Mr S. L. Paterson, S.M., in the Rotorua Magistrate’s Court to-day, during the hearing of a case involving an alleged breach of the New Zealand Typographical Workers’ Award. The Department of Labour claimed a £lO penalty from the publishers of the Rotorua “Morning Post” on the grounds that they had employed men at less than the minimum rates fixed for printing establishment employees in towns of more than 6000 inhabitants. Defendants contended that although the last census had shown the population of Rotorua to be 6531, information was that it was only 5494, which they claimed entitled them to pay wages for towns with a population of over 3000 and under 6000. They contended that a large number of visitors, estimated by the Government Statistician at 1237, wdre in Rotorua at the time of the taking of the census, and that these should not be considered as forming part of the population for the purposes of the award.

The magistrate, who reserved his decision, said that a definition of population appeared to be very necessary in the award. At present it was most inelastic and cumbersome.