THE BONUS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18540, 28 April 1922, Page 6

THE BONUS

YESTERDAY’S PROCEEDINGS MISUNDERSTANDING CLEARED UP. EVIDENCE FOR THE EM* PLOVERS. (Peb United Phess Association.) WELLINGTON. April 27. When the Arbitration Court opened today Mr Justice Frazer said that he wished to clear up a misunderstanding with regard to the court’s Wanganui pronouncement. That , pronouncement was not a tentative prppcsal that wages should be reduced by 5s per week. The court’s statement was purely a statistical one, and not in any sense a statement of whether or to what extent wages should be reduced. The employers’ evidence was continued. Arthur Seed, secretary of the Dominion, Federated Saw-millers’ Association, read a statement showing a closing down of mills and a shortening of bands and a general reduction of 2s per hundred in the prices at the mill. The labour costs represented 70 to 75 per cent, of the total production coats, Beaumont Mapplebeck, representing the hoot manufacturers, gave evidence as to tlie unparalleled prosperity of the boot trade between 1915 and 1918. Witness spoke of the effect of heavy importations in 1920, causing New Zealand factories when the slump came to work half-time. England, where wages were £2 18s, compared with £4 Us 8d here, and where the workers put in four extra hours, was New Zealand’s greatest competitor. Manufacturers had "had to sell below cost—as much as 50 per lent, in some cases. Tiro latest figures showed that in March last there were employed 176 less workers than in March, 1920. THE CASE FOR THE UNIONS. MR M‘COMBS’S ADDRESS. WELLINGTON, April 27. • Mr J. M‘Combs, M.P. (representing the Alliance of Labour and other bodies) congratulated Mr Bishop on his choice of the engineering trade as the principal basis from which to fight the case, and' for the avoidance of the woollen and other industries, which were paying handsomely. Dealing with the result of stabilisation, he said the reductions in the cost of living had not been as rapid as the court had anticipated. The fall of 10s which should have taken_ place at the end of tile first six months did not occur until the end of a year, and the workers therefore urged that the stabilisation period should be extended for one year. In rqaking this request they relied on the promise of the court that if the fall in the cost of living should prove to be less than anticipated there would be a readjustment. Having protested against the non-publication ,-of. “all groups” index numbers since August, 1920, he said , the court could not, if it was to maintain a full standard of living, possibly reduce the present minimum rates of wages; and _in this connection ho contrasted the decision of the Australian Commission, fixing the average basic wage at £5 14s sd. Wages, apart from the withholding of the 5s bonus, had already been reduced by .employers, who were paying only the minimum wage fixed by award, and by onlyj intermittent ■' employment. The workers wages had , always lagged behind the increase in the cost of living, and to reduce wages to the amount shown by the reduction in the cost of living would be to multiply by two the disadvantages Which the workers had to put up with during the war and since. Last session’s Act required the court not to lower wages below what, wds necessary to maintain a fair standard of living, and it was perfectly plain that this was to override all other considerations. It was true that wages had fallen in other countries, but. wages there had increased in greater ratio than the increase in the host of living. He contended that the 1914 standard was not fair in New Zealand, and unfortunately the New Zealand workers did not to-day obtain, aa high, a wage, measured in purchasing power, as they did in 1914. Discussing economic conditions Mr M'Comhs argued that there was evidence of increasing prosperity for New Zealand. Her exports for the. year just closed exceeded in amount the total for the two ,best pre-war years, and the heavy impartitions in 1920 and the beginning of 1921 .onG temporarily disturbed the balance of trade. Very substantial reductions in prices should take place before wages were reduced. In conclusion, Mr M Combe urged the court, if he succeeded in Proving that the present basic wage did not afford a fair standard of living, not onlv not to reduce wages, but to urge upon the Lovernment the appointment of a commission to go into the question of what is a fair standard of living. It was truer economy to make the wages bill the last instead oi the first to be touched. , ~ Mr T. Blood'ivorth also addressed the' court on behalf of the workers. He said it was remarkable that no retailers had been called in evidence by the employers. The fact was the retailers were adversely affected by the reduction in the spending power of the workers. What haa affected the farmer’s position was the reduced purchasing power of the European purchasers. Where improvement was needed here was in management. After traversing the question at some length Mr Bloodwort.h concluded bv stating that the demand for reductions in wages and salaries came largely from -land speculators, men who only by an abuse of language can be called bona fide farmers. Enormous profits have been made by these land speculators. Merchants and manufacturers had vanished in thin air, or do they still exist in the farm lands, stocks, and shares, in much enlarged and much more valuable business premises? One thing was certain, and that is that no such profits accrued to the wage-earner. He had no unexpended surplus thus locked up. When employers and producers made an extra profit one year they did not immediately raise wages. Why, then, should -wages be reduced at the first intimation of reduced profits? Before wages are reduced the Legislature should call upon all those clamouring for a reduction to produce all the requisite documents to show what happened to the profits they made during the good years—years in which they did not ask that wages should be what, the industry could bear. It was not right to reduce wages because a few merchants and land speculators got nipped by over-speculation. They never intended to share their profits with the workers. Why then,, should the workers be asked to bear their losses? To keep wages at the present level would teach the speculator a lesson It would also tend to weed out the inefficient employer, who, from a strictly economic point of view, tends to depress wages and increase prices, for prices depend upon the cost of production by the most inefficient producer in the industry. To make the workers’ wages depend upon the capacity of the most, inefficient and foolish is to give the employer and deny the worker advantages which accrue from progress, science, and industry.. “Such are the reasons” ho said, “why we oppose anv reduction in the rates of remuneration at the present time, and nek the court to order the present minimum rates to continue for at least a fur-, ther six months.” The case will be continued to-morrow.