ARBITRATION COURT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17483, 27 November 1918, Page 7

ARBITRATION COURT.

- ■'■ ■ ' - IHSOrjSSION ON THB COST OF LIVING. "THE VICIOUS CmCLE." The Arbitration Conrt—Mr Jusfaoe Stringer (president) and Messrs W. Scott and J. A. M*Cullongh—continued ita sitting yesterday. ENGINEEES, RANGT3MAKERS, AND TLNSMrrHS. Thia was an application for an increased ■war bonus. Messrs J. Elston and A. Rico appeared for the union, and Mr John A. Brown for the employers. The wages of the engineers at present are Is 6d per hour, plus the war bonus of 2d per hour (by award),; an additional war bomi3 of W per hour was asked for. The wages of tinsmiths, metal workers, and coppersmiths is Is 6d per hotrr, plus a war bonus of l£d (by agreement); an additional war bonus of 4>}d per hour was asked for. Itansrcmakers rective Is 4d, plus a war bonus of lid (by agreement); an additional war bonus of 4£d per hour was asked for. IVIr Elston addressed the court on the increased cost of living:. Ho said the increased, cost of living sinco the war could be quite moderately placed at 70 per cent. He also thought it would be found that for a period of 15 years prior to tho war— which oeriod practically covered the initiation of industrial legislation—tho increase in wages came to 8i per cent., and the increased cost of living for the same period amounted to 33 1-3 per cent. , Mr Soott: No, you are wrong. Mr Elston said that despite the war taxes thp food profiteers had made an extra £50,000.000. Enormous profits had been been made in the sale of medicines during the present epidemic, and he noticed in tho papers whero it had been said that 16s 6d had been charged for a bottle of formalin, which cost 4d. Tht food profiteers, backed up by a muddling Government, had lbeen_ the cause of the increases. They ftlfc justified in asking for a further boms, ams as long as the increased cost of living went on they would feel compelled to come to tho court and ask for more wages. The President: Unless the Government lakes steps to prevent tho increased cost of ■nng it seems to mo that tho increases of wagee are moro or less futile. Mr Elston said trie engineers present •wage of Is 8d per hour really represented an increase of but 10£ per cent, since 1908. Mr Brown said in IQU the engineers were given an award wage of lls per day. On January 21 a new award' came into operation which gave a minimum wage of Is 8d per hour. Now Mr Elston asked for a further increase, and that apprentices should be advanced from 22s to 24s per ■week. He thotight it was simply scandalous that a country which produced four times the amount of foodstuffs it required for itself should have to pay locally such high prices. for fcheee commodities, and on this score he could not possibly reply to Mr Elston. But the court had made an award in Jannary this year, and must be guided by it The speaker referred to the difficulties under , which the iron trade was working. He thought all the legislation that had been brought forward had been for the benefit of those entrenched between the worker and the manufacturer. The iron trade was at a very low ebb at the present time.

Mr Elston said they admitted that the employers were considerably handicapped, and no doubt they had been exploited to a certain extent, the 6ame as the union members were._ If the employers -were in competition with each other—which thoy alwaye •were—-the anion was not responsible for that. He was not, however, singling ont the engineering industry particularly Si this connection. The President said that the court recently, as they knew, when Bitting _in the north, went into the question of th<» increased cost of livmg pretty thoroughly, and came to the decision that m the case of a skilled trade—the carpenters—that some further consideration should be extended to them, and it awarded on increased war bonus of 3d, which brought the wages up to Is 6d per hour Ine court had always thought that all skilled trades should be placed on someW iT P e same tooting and it would probi 'iW 10 dld not definitely—place the skilled workers whom Mr Elston represented on that same footing. They realised quite as fully as both representatives who had spoken that these increases in the war bonus did not represent to the full extent the increased cost of living; but he must confess that it seemed to him the raising of the wages, as it were, in correspondence to the increased cost of living was more or less like a will o , the wisp. The court raised wages in sympathy wfth the increased cost of living, and after a year went round it found that the wages were farther off than ever from being- in correspondence with the increased cost of living. As had been pointed out many times it was more or less moving m a vicious errele, but he Faw no alternative course for the court to follow except to do something of that sort; and unless the Government stcfped in—as h& thought it might have stepped m long before this—to prevent the increased cost of living in many respects it seemed to him that the court would have to go on doing it. It seemed preposterous that in a country like this, with its produce—meat, butter, cheese, eta,—the cost to the workers of the country should be as high as it _ was at present, as it was largely to the increase in that respect that the increased cost was one. It was the same with clothing and other things. It seemed to him that ihe increased cost to «W persons was very greatly in excess of £ what was fair and reasonable, and that enormous profits were being made in these trades, the burden of which, of course, fell largely on the workers and other people who were not able to increase the price of their commodities in the same proportion. The court did not say that this applied, so far as increased profits were concerned, to people like those in the engineering trade. The court realised that they were not in. tho position that many other industries were, competing as they must compete with _ outside_ manufacturers. But it felt certain that it must give the worker some relief, and it would probably, when it came to consider the matter, decide to put them in tho same position as other skilled workers, whatever tho consequences might l>6.

Mr Brown said he would be prepared to agree at once that the court's grant of a bonus should also cover the moulders, metal and boilermakers, bringing the. whole industry into lino. The metal workers _ and boilermakers had not made an application for a bonus. It would be decidedly unfair to give an increased rate to one branch of tho industry and not to another. The Presideat said tho court had proposed to give a bonus of 3d to the engineers. . "

Mr Brown said his_ .instructions from the Ironmasters' Association were to agree to one penny advance, and ho would not object to the other branches of the industry being raised to 3d also, A war bonus of 3d per hour was then agreed to. The position now is that the present flat rates are to remain, but the various existing war bonuses are to be increased, so as to brinjr them all up to the same rate of 3d. The President said it was very satisfactory that the employers should" take up such a reasonablo attitude. They hoped that before long things might resume a more normal course.