THE COST OF LIVING.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19502, 10 June 1925, Page 10

THE COST OF LIVING.

TO THB KDITOE. Sib, —Cost of living up 62.1 per cent! The figures just published by the Government Statistician show that the increase in the cost of living is the highest recorded for the last three years, yet so fur aa I know very few, if any, of the newspapers have drawn attention to the fact When the last tonus was granted to the civil servants it was based on an increase in the cost of living of 62 per cent. Today, or rather when the last calculations were made, the increase in the, cost of living is again 63 per cent., which means that the sovereign will only purchase on the average what 12s 4d would have purchased in 1914; or, to put it another way, it costs £1 12s 5d to-day to purchase what a sovereign would have purchased in 1914. A worker who received £3 a week in 1914 would to-day have to get £4 17s 3d in older to purchase the same goods and services which £3 would have purchased in 1914. The skilled worker who received Is 6d an hour in 1914 should to-day be receiving 2s 6d per hour. The Arbitration Court award rate for most skilled works is 2s IJd. Skilled workers are, therefore 4Jd an hour, or 15s 7d a week, short of a’n amount sufficient to maintain the 1914 standard of living. Public servants are still worse olt. Those who were on a minimum wage of 10s a day in 1914 are now, with the two bonus cuts, only receiving 13s 4d a day. They should be receiving 16s 21d, or 2s 10 Id a day more than they are receivWhen I wrote on the cost of living last month one critic argued that the workers should contribute their share of the cost of the war. The answer is that the 15s a week (and more) which the workers are short would pay our total annual interest and sinking fund charges on war costs , more than twice over. Anyhow, why should the workers have to pay the war costs? They did not participate in the war profits, but, on the contrary, ha-d to suffer a reduced standard of living by reason of the fact that the Arbitration Court never during the whole war period increased wages equivalent to the increase in the cost of living. Other sections of the community made millions out of the war, and New Zealand was so situated that it would have been an easy matter for the whole of the war costs to have been met out of war profits. Despite the fact that millions of war profits have been dissipated and there is nothing now to show for the expenditure, and allowing for the recent slump in laud values in the counties, the facts are that the total private wealth in the dominion has never been higher than it is to-day. According to the Government Statistician, the increase in the private wealth of the dominion in 10 years—l9l3-1923 —is well over four hundred millions sterling. The estimated private wealth in 191.3 was £276,619,832. In 1923 it was estimated at £723,263,878—an increase of £416,624,016 in ten years, or over 160 per cent. While other sections of the community have increased their standards of luxury and comfort enormously, the workers have had their meagre standard steadily reduced. The dominion was never more wealthy than it is to-day, and there is neither justification nor excuse for the policy of the Government or for the legisl ition which lias been responsible for the lowering of the wage workers’ standard of living. Instead of being reduced, there is every reason why the New Zealand workers’ stan- 1 dard of living should have been raised above the 1914 standard. Increased wages woula mean increased purchasing power, and those whose business and industry depend on the purchasing power oi the workers woula benefit.—l am, etc., J. M’Cojxbs,