HEAVY WAGES BURDEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18202, 22 September 1922, Page 8

HEAVY WAGES BURDEN.

NEW ZEALAND RAILWAYS. FORTY-FOUR HOURS WEEK. [BY TBLEGBAPH.—SPECXAL EBFOBTEB.] WELLINGTON. Thursday. Tho 44 hours week, which became operative on March 6, 1921/ is directly responsible for an increase of £305,996 in the wages bill for the current year, says Mr. R. W. McVilly, General Manager of the New Zealand Railways, in his annual report, and this, notwithstanding a curtailment of the train services and the redaction in pay provided for in the Salaries Adjustment Act 1921, taking effect from January 1, 1922. A table is given showing that whereas the increase for the five years 1914-19 amounted to ,£310,274, or 15.77 per cent., that for the triennial period 1019-22 was £1,549,227, or' 68.03 per cent. Mr. McVilly states that these figures indicate in a striking manner the farreaching' effect of the recommendations of the Wages Board,, which became operative in January, 1920. and March, 1921. Details of the alterations in pay and working conditions involved in giving effect to the Wages Board's recommendations were given in last year's report. The figures are, however, eloquent testimony to the fact that the making of both ends meet, a complex problem in favourable circumstances, is not rendered less 'difficult by a steady decline of revenue and an advance of such magnitude in' the cost of the wages bill. The increase of £1,080,589 in the wages bill of Ihe last two years represents a sum sufficient to pay 2.74 per cent, on the capital cost of the working railways f£39 *G0,000). The causes to which the increase in wages is due were stated in last year's report.